1. Legal analysis

2. References

3. External links

In 2007, The Corner House and the Campaign Against Arms Trade sought a judicial review of the UK Government's discontinuation of an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into the Al Yamamah arms deal.^[2] The High Court initially declared the Serious Fraud Office's discontinuation unlawful in April 2008, but this decision was unanimously reversed by the House of Lords in July of the same year.

Legal analysis

The principle had already been established in Khalid that where the Crown had no choice, a prosecution could be dropped in the face of an extreme threat.^[3] The question was therefore simply whether the Director of the Serious Fraud Office had done 'all that could reasonably be done had been done to resist the threat'.^[4] In April 2008 the High Court of Justice ruled that the Serious Fraud Office had acted unlawfully in dropping the investigation for failing to do so.^[5]

On 30 July of the same year, this decision was unanimously reversed by the House of Lords. They overruled both the factual and principled basis of the High Court's decision. As a matter of principle, they ruled the courts could only declare the decision unlawful if it was outside of the Director's power, not merely unreasonable. Factually, they held that his decision was in any case reasonable.^[6]

References

Judgements:

Corner House (High Court): R. (on the application of Corner House Research) v Director of the Serious Fraud Office [2008] EWHC 714 (Admin)

Corner House (House of Lords): R (On the Application of Corner House Research and Others) v Director of the Serious Fraud Office [2008] UKHL 60

External links

• The Corner House

• Treaty of Mannar
• Treaty of Marrakech
• Treaty of Mavelikkara
• Treaty of Meaux
• Treaty of Mechlin
• Treaty of Mechlin (1513)
• Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek
• Treaty of Mellifont
• Treaty of Mesilla
• Treaty of Milan (1849)
• Treaty of Misenum
• Treaty of Montevideo (disambiguation)
• Treaty of Montreal
• Treaty of Montreuil (1274)
• Treaty of Moscow, 1970
• Treaty of Moshaisk
• Treaty of Mozhaysk
• Treaty of Mudros
• Treaty of Mutual Defense (Peru-Bolivia)
• Treaty of Mutual Defense (Peru–Bolivia)
• Treaty of Münster (1648)
• Treaty of Nagyvárad
• Treaty of NanJing
• Treaty of Nice 2001
• Treaty of Nis (1739)