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Of busybodies & equalities

18 March 2022 / Nicholas Dobson
Issue: 7971 / Categories: Features , Public , Covid-19
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Nicholas Dobson reviews the recent challenge to the appointment of Dido Harding as chair of Test & Trace
  • Since Good Law Project had no standing to bring Equality Act 2010 and apparent bias claims against the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (SoS), its claim entirely failed.
  • The Runnymede Trust was granted a declaration that the SoS failed to comply with the public sector equality duty in making certain critical government appointments concerning COVID-19.

Lewis Carrol’s Duchess observed (in a hoarse growl): ‘If everybody minded their own business… the world would go round a good deal faster than it does.’ But while the Duchess was not a paragon of rationality (and her child-care skills somewhat below par), she did echo an engrained feeling from across the ages. So, as Robert Whittington’s 1532 translation of Erasmus’s De civilitate morum puerilium (A Lytell Bok of Good Maners for Chyldren) advised: ‘Be nat ouer besy in other mennes causes.’ The Bible (Peter 4.15) also counsels ‘let none

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Serious injury teambolstered by high-profile partner hire

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Firm strengthens employment team with partner hire

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

Lawyers’ liability practice strengthened with partner appointment in London

NEWS
Tech companies will be legally required to prevent material that encourages or assists serious self-harm appearing on their platforms, under Online Safety Act 2023 regulations due to come into force in the autumn
Commercial leasehold, the defence of insanity and ‘consent’ in the criminal law are among the next tranche of projects for the Law Commission
The Bar has a culture of ‘impunity’ and ‘collusive bystanding’ in which making a complaint is deemed career-ending due to a ‘cohort of untouchables’ at the top, Baroness Harriet Harman KC has found
Lawyers have broadly welcomed plans to electronically tag up to 22,000 more offenders, scrap most prison terms below a year and make prisoners ‘earn’ early release
David Lammy, Ellie Reeves and Baroness Levitt have taken up office at the Ministry of Justice, following the cabinet reshuffle
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