Discrimination in Public Law Training - Recent developments & hot topics

This online seminar will cover recent developments in discrimination in public law. It will use recent caselaw to reiterate the important legal and procedural principles under the Equality Act 2010, the public sector equality duty, Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), EU law, and public law equal treatment.

It will include talks focusing on specific areas of practice, including immigration, asylum support and social welfare law. It will do so to illustrate discrimination principles that apply to any other area of public law.

It is aimed at all levels of public law practitioner.

Topics include: 

• Recent important caselaw in domestic courts and Strasbourg. 

• Systemic challenges: legislation and policy. 

• Procedure and remedies, including what evidence you will need, time limits and s.31(2A) SCA 1981. 

• Immigration, asylum and asylum support: recent developments and potential future challenges. 

• Social welfare: recent developments and potential future challenges.

• Algorithms and databases as indirect discrimination, and the need to assess discriminatory impact. 

• The implications of For Women Scotland, trans discrimination, and gender-critical beliefs.
  

The speakers are Adam Straw KC and Shu Shin Luh from Doughty Street Chambers, and Tom Royston from Garden Court North. 

Attendees will receive the recording and slides.

Adam Straw KC, Doughty Street Chambers
Adam practices in judicial review, human rights and civil claims against public authorities. He has expertise in of a wide range of fields, including discrimination, immigration, asylum, trafficking, national security and terrorism, police, prisons, protest, social welfare,  inquests and inquiries, environmental challenges, and children’s rights.

Adam is an author of Discrimination in Public Law (LAG), Sweet & Maxwell’s Human Rights Practice, and Inquests – A Practitioner’s Guide (LAG). He was previously awarded Chambers & Partners human rights and public law junior of the year. He is a special advocate, and is called to the Bar in Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Shu Shin Luh, Doughty Street Chambers

Shu Shin practices in all areas of public and human rights law and is ranked as a leading senior junior in those fields. She co-convenes the Doughty Street Children’s Rights Group and is Team Leader for the Community Care and Health team. 

Shu Shin’s practice has a strong human rights, civil liberties, and anti-discrimination focus. She has depth of expertise across a broad range of subject matters: children’s and adult social care, mental health and mental capacity, health care, education, housing, welfare benefits, human trafficking, immigration and asylum, and deprivation of liberty both in the context of immigration detention and the Court of Protection. She pursues significant challenges on behalf of marginalised individuals and organisations.

Tom Royston, Garden Court North.
Tom Royston is a barrister at Garden Court North Chambers, specialising in social welfare law. He regularly appears in the Supreme Court and High Court, often instructed in test cases about systemic problems with how the state treats individuals. Among these cases, Tom has represented local residents in judicial review claims brought against councils in Trafford and Somerset for unlawful discrimination in council tax reduction schemes, and acted on reviews of the Personal Independence Payments scheme. Tom has also won a Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year award and been a Times Lawyer of the Week.