A Local Authority v K (by the Official Solicitor) and others

Sterilisation Mentally handicapped person. The Court of Protection made a best interests determination in relation to issues of contraception for, and sterilisation of, K, a 21 year old women who was born with Down's Syndrome.

R (on the application of Zacchaeus 2000 Trust) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Social security Housing benefit. The Administrative Court, in dismissing an application for judicial review of the Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) (Amendment) Order 2012, , held that the Order was neither ultra vires nor in breach of the .

A London Borough v A and others

Family proceedings Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division made care and placement orders in circumstances where the children's father had been found to be responsible for the death of their sibling and the mother had been unable to demonstrate that she would be reliably able to exclude the father from her life or the life of the children over the long period of years that would be necessary for their safety and well-being.

R (on the application of Members of the Committee of Care North East Northumberland) v Northumberland County Council

Local authority Residential care home. The Administrative Court held that the defendant local authority's decision to fix care home rates in the Northumberland area for the period of three years had not been unlawful.

*ZH (by his litigation friend) v Metropolitan Police Commissioner

Damages Breach of statutory duty. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, upheld each of the judge's findings below and dismissed the defendant Metropolitan Police Commissioner's appeal. The judge had found, inter alia, that the police had unlawfully discriminated against the claimant, a young man with severe autism and epilepsy, and had breached his rights under arts3, 5 and 8 of the European Convention in circumstances where he had been removed from a swimming pool and forcibly restrained.

Re O-C (Children) (Interim Care Order: Jurisdiction)

Family proceedings Orders in family proceedings. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that a judge had erred in making an interim care order in regard to children that had been taken out of the jurisdiction and then ordering their return. It was essential that any order for the return of children had the effect of returning them to the status quo, which, in the instant case, had been to the care of the mother.

University of Bristol v North Somerset Council

Town and Country Planning Development Plan. The Administrative Court held that the adoption of Policy CS13 of the defendant local authority's Core Strategy in reliance on an inspector's recommendation had been unlawful as the inspector had failed to give adequate or intelligent reasons for his conclusion that the authority's housing requirement figure had made sufficient allowance for latent demand.

*Re H (a child) (contact order: relaxation of restrictions prior to full hearing)

Family proceedings Orders in family proceedings. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed a mother's appeal against a decision to relax restrictions on contact between her son and his father in circumstances where the mother had alleged violence towards the child on the part of the father and where the order had been made following submissions at a directions hearing. The Court of Appeal gave guidance on PD 12J which supplemented Pt 12 of the Family Procedure Rules 2010.

Westminster City Council v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and another

Town and Country Planning Development. The Administrative Court held that a timetable for the completion of works in order for the second defendant to satisfy conditions imposed on the granting of planning permission had been incorporated into the conditions with the effect that those conditions had been capable of enforcement by the claimant local planning authority.

*R (on the application of Reilly and another) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Social security Income support. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in allowing an appeal by two claimants against jobseekers schemes which they had been told that they had to engage with, held that the Jobseeker's Allowance (Employment and Enterprise) Regulations 2011, , were unlawful and would be quashed.