 | |
| Formation | January 2017 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Jolyon Maugham |
| Type | Nonprofit |
| Purpose | Activism |
Official language | English |
| Website | goodlawproject |
The Good Law Project is a United Kingdom-based political [1] non-profit company. Founded by Jolyon Maugham, the Good Law Project states that its mission is to achieve change through the law.
The Good Law Project was founded in January 2017 as a company limited by guarantee under English law [2] headed by Maugham. It is a non-profit but not a registered charity. In 2019 it launched a crowdfunded challenge to the prorogation of Parliament by Boris Johnson's Conservative government, which was ultimately successful. The prorogation was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court, [3] but by this time Johnson's government had pushed through their Brexit deal so the issue was moot. However, the £200,000 raised enabled Good Law Project to hire more staff and launch other fundraisers to take on more cases.
As of September 2021 Good Law Project has applied for judicial review in 14 cases and been granted approval in 11.
In 2022, the High Court ruled that the Good Law Project does not have 'carte blanche' for bringing in judicial reviews. [4] [ clarification needed ]
The Good Law Project challenged the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, claiming that the COVID testing contracts with Abingdon Health were unlawful because they were not advertised nor open to competition, and the correct procurement process was bypassed. On 7 October 2022 the High Court ruled that the contracts were lawful, so Good Law Project lost the case. [5]
In September 2022, the charity Mermaids went to court to appeal the Charity Commission's decision to grant the LGB Alliance charitable status. This action was supported by the Good Law Project. [6]
An Order-in-Council is a type of legislation in many countries, especially the Commonwealth realms. In the United Kingdom this legislation is formally made in the name of the monarch by and with the advice and consent of the Privy Council (King-in-Council), but in other countries the terminology may vary. The term should not be confused with Orders of Council, which are made in the name of the Council without sovereign approval.
Landmark court decisions, in present-day common law legal systems, establish precedents that determine a significant new legal principle or concept, or otherwise substantially affect the interpretation of existing law. "Leading case" is commonly used in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth jurisdictions instead of "landmark case", as used in the United States.
Ultra vires is a Latin phrase used in law to describe an act that requires legal authority but is done without it. Its opposite, an act done under proper authority, is intra vires. Acts that are intra vires may equivalently be termed "valid", and those that are ultra vires termed "invalid".
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), formerly the Alliance Defense Fund, is an American conservative Christian legal advocacy group that works to protect religious liberty, expand Christian practices within public schools and in government, outlaw abortion, and curtail LGBTQ rights. In 2014, ADF literature described part of its mission as "[seeking] to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries." ADF is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, with branch offices in several locations including Washington, D.C., and New York. Its international subsidiary, Alliance Defending Freedom International, with headquarters in Vienna, Austria, operates in over 100 countries.
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for all civil cases, and for criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the United Kingdom’s highest appellate court for these matters, it hears cases of the greatest public or constitutional importance affecting the whole population.
The Claim of Right is an Act passed by the Convention of the Estates, a sister body to the Parliament of Scotland, in April 1689. It is one of the key documents of United Kingdom constitutional law and Scottish constitutional law.
David Philip Pannick, Baron Pannick, is a British barrister and a crossbencher in the House of Lords. He practises mainly in the areas of public law and human rights. He has argued cases before the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, the European Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights.
Mishcon de Reya LLP is a British international law firm with offices in London, Cambridge, Oxford, Singapore, as well as an association with Karas So LLP in Hong Kong. Founded in 1937, it employs more than 1450 people with over 650 lawyers. It is regarded as forming part of the "Silver Circle" of leading UK law firms.
Robert John Reed, Baron Reed of Allermuir, is a Scottish judge who has been President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom since January 2020. He was the principal judge in the Commercial Court in Scotland before being promoted to the Inner House of the Court of Session in 2008. He is an authority on human rights law in Scotland and elsewhere; he served as one of the UK's ad hoc judges at the European Court of Human Rights. He was also a Non-Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong.
James Leon Dennis is an American lawyer, jurist, and former politician serving as a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, with chambers in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Diana Mary "Dido" Harding, Baroness Harding of Winscombe is a British businesswoman and life peer who served as chair of NHS Improvement from 2017 to 2021 and as interim chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and head of NHS Test and Trace from 2020 to 2021.
A recall of parliament is a parliamentary procedure involving an extraordinary sitting of a parliament, occurring outside the time when that parliament would usually meet, such as over a weekend, or when the parliament would normally be in recess. A parliament is generally recalled as a result of events of major national importance, thus allowing members to hold an emergency debate on issues relating to those events.
Gina Nadira Miller is a Guyanese-British business owner and activist who initiated the 2016 R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union court case against the British government over its authority to implement Brexit without approval from Parliament.
Jolyon Toby Dennis Maugham is a British barrister. Initially a practitioner in contentious taxation law, he stepped away in order to act as the founder and director of the Good Law Project, through which he has played a role in bringing to court a number of legal challenges to the Brexit process, which he opposed. He has written on Brexit and legal issues for publications such as The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and the New Statesman. He published his first book in 2023.
In United Kingdom constitutional law, prorogation is an act usually used to mark the end of a parliamentary session. Part of the royal prerogative, it is the name given to the period between the end of a session of the UK Parliament and the State Opening of Parliament that begins the next session. The average length of prorogation since 2000 is approximately 18 days. The parliamentary session may also be prorogued before Parliament is dissolved. The power to prorogue Parliament belongs to the monarch, on the advice of the Privy Council. Like all prerogative powers, it is not left to the personal discretion of the monarch but is to be exercised, on the advice of the prime minister, according to law.
On 28 August 2019, the Parliament of the United Kingdom was ordered to be prorogued by Queen Elizabeth II on the advice of the Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson – this advice was later ruled unlawful. The prorogation, or suspension, of Parliament was to be effective from some point between 9 and 12 September 2019 and would last until the State Opening of Parliament on 14 October 2019. As a consequence, Parliament was suspended between 10 September and 24 September 2019. Since Parliament was to be prorogued for five weeks and reconvene just 17 days before the United Kingdom's scheduled departure from the European Union on 31 October 2019, the move was seen by many opposition politicians and political commentators as a controversial and unconstitutional attempt by the prime minister to avoid parliamentary scrutiny of the Government's Brexit plans in the final weeks leading up to Brexit. Johnson and his Government defended the prorogation of Parliament as a routine political process that ordinarily follows the selection of a new prime minister and would allow the Government to refocus on a legislative agenda.
R (Miller) v The Prime Minister and Cherry v Advocate General for Scotland, also known as Miller II and Miller/Cherry, were joint landmark constitutional law cases on the limits of the power of royal prerogative to prorogue the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Argued before the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in September 2019, the case concerned whether the advice given by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, to Queen Elizabeth II that Parliament should be prorogued in the prelude to the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union was lawful.
The LGB Alliance is a British nonprofit advocacy group founded in 2019, in opposition to the policies of LGBT rights charity Stonewall on transgender issues. Its founders are Bev Jackson, Kate Harris, Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark and Ann Sinnott. The organization has said that lesbians are facing "extinction" because of the "disproportionate" focus on transgender identities in schools.
Allison Elaine Bailey is a retired barrister who specialised in criminal defence law and worked in London, England. Bailey initiated an employment tribunal claim against her legal chambers and Stonewall in 2020. The case has attracted public and media attention, particularly in relation to the Diversity Champions programme. She announced her retirement from the Bar and resignation from her chambers on her website effective 31 March 2023.
Keoagile Elias Matojane is a South African judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal. Formerly an attorney, he was a judge of the Gauteng High Court from December 2009 until December 2022, when he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
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