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Liability for harassment online: I hear you’re a transphobe now, Father!
Read more: Liability for harassment online: I hear you’re a transphobe now, Father!In a recent case – R v Graham Linehan, Westminster Magistrates’ Court, 25 November 2025 – a district judge found the defendant not guilty of harassment under the Protection of Harassment Act 1997; although guilty of criminal damage for destroying a phone owned by the complainant. The harassment action was brought by Sophia Brooks, who was born a biological male but identifies as a woman and who champions LGBT rights.…
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I complained about a judge’s behaviour
Read more: I complained about a judge’s behaviourAnti-social behaviour (ASB) takes many forms. It could be shouting, screaming, banging doors, swearing, playing loud music at night, disturbing the neighbours, using foul language, allowing rented property to become dilapidated, urinating or defecating in public. It can cause misery, but it’s not criminal. Once ASB has been found by a civil court (a County Court) the court may impose an ASB injunction. If the injunction is breached then the…
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Segregating prisoners, judicial review and complying with human rights law
Read more: Segregating prisoners, judicial review and complying with human rights lawIn a recent case (R (Abu) v Secretary of State for Justice [2025] EWHC 3026 (Admin)), the Justice Secretary and the prison authorities were found to have transgressed both their public law powers and human rights obligations by segregating prisoners. Importantly, the secretary (and her predecessor) was found to have breached Article 3 of the Convention (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment), in what is believed to be…
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‘Cheating’ is not necessarily copyright infringement
Read more: ‘Cheating’ is not necessarily copyright infringementSoftware that facilitates employing unfair practices to secure an illegitimate victory in a video game, once again, made its way to the courts. On 31 July 2025, in a recent judgment (Case no. I ZR 157/21), the German Federal Court of Justice (‘BGH’) had to primarily determine whether cheat software that modifies the original execution of video game software, which is controlled by the underlying computer program, constituted copyright infringement.…
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Smoking in prisons: the decision in Vainak and others v Estonia
Read more: Smoking in prisons: the decision in Vainak and others v EstoniaIn Vanik and others (Decision of the European Court, 4 November 2025; Applications nos. 17982/21 and 3 others), the European Court of Human Rights upheld prisoners’ claims that the total smoking ban imposed in Estonian prisons was a disproportionate interreference with their rights under Article 8 of the European Convention – the right to private life. Before delivering judgment, the European Court noted that it had already ruled on cases…
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Institutional liability and fundamental rights in the EU: Case C-679/23 P WS and Others v Frontex
Read more: Institutional liability and fundamental rights in the EU: Case C-679/23 P WS and Others v FrontexThe pending appeal in WS and Others v Frontex presents one of the most significant challenges for the European Union’s external border governance regime in recent years. The case concerns whether the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) can be held liable for its operational role in a 2016 joint return operation conducted with Greek authorities, in which asylum seekers were forcibly returned to Turkey in circumstances allegedly breaching…
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Single Copyright for a Single Market: why has this longstanding vision not been materialised?
Read more: Single Copyright for a Single Market: why has this longstanding vision not been materialised?The current EU copyright landscape consisting of 27 national copyright laws presents fundamental differences. For example, the use of copyrighted works may be permitted in a certain manner in one Member State but not in another due to the divergent copyright exceptions. Consequently, a lack of a single EU copyright law is a critical restraint withholding the EU from achieving a true digital single market. The previous Reprobel blog analysed…
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Herbert Smith Freehills fine and the long shadow of the Common Foreign and Security Policy
Read more: Herbert Smith Freehills fine and the long shadow of the Common Foreign and Security PolicyThis week, one of the UK’s leading law firms – Herbert Smith Freehills – was fined almost half a million pounds for breaching sanctions against Russian banks. The reason for the fine was ‘making funds available for the benefit of a designated person without a licence’ – the designated persons in this case being three banks: Alfa-Bank JSC, PJSC Sovcombank, and PJSC Sberbank. The payments arose as a consequence of…
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Vertical Direct Effect of InfoSoc Directive: the limits of minimum harmonisation in EU copyright law
Read more: Vertical Direct Effect of InfoSoc Directive: the limits of minimum harmonisation in EU copyright lawIntroduction On 14 November 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) delivered its judgment in Case C-230/23 Reprobel CV v Copaco Belgium NV (‘Reprobel’) that certain provisions of the Information Society Directive (‘InfoSoc Directive’) could produce a vertical direct effect, entitling domestic courts of EU Member States to disapply erroneous national transpositions of the InfoSoc Directive. Article 5(2)(a) and (b) of the Directive enables Member States to…
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Voices from the Inside: prisoners speak out
Read more: Voices from the Inside: prisoners speak outOn December 5, 2023, an audience gathered for a Quaker outreach event at Wandsworth meeting house. We were to hear from the then Quaker prison chaplain, Liz Bridge about her work in the HMP Wandsworth. No one was prepared for what happened that night. What Liz told us was electrifying, not quite believable. How could it be that the shocking conditions and misery Liz was describing were happening right on…