Monday 03 August 2026
Your weekly SQE Prep Quiz has arrived
Dear Subscriber,
Hope you had a great weekend. Please see below for the question, the answer to the previous question and associated resources. This is the web version of this newsletter.
This Week’s Question: During an argument, a man deliberately stabs a woman in the abdomen, intending to cause her really serious injury but not to kill her. At hospital, doctors explain that she will probably survive if she receives an immediate blood transfusion. She refuses the transfusion because of a sincerely held religious belief and dies from blood loss. Medical evidence confirms that the stab wound remained a substantial and operating cause of death. Which of the following best reflects the man’s likely criminal liability?
A. He is guilty only of manslaughter because murder requires an intention to kill rather than an intention to cause serious injury.
B. He is guilty of murder because he intended to cause grievous bodily harm and the woman’s refusal of treatment does not break the chain of causation.
C. He is guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent because the woman’s refusal of treatment became the legal cause of death.
D. He is not guilty of homicide because the woman made an informed and voluntary decision that resulted in her death.
E. He is guilty of attempted murder because he intended serious injury, but the prosecution cannot attribute the eventual death to him.
Dig Deeper: Revising Criminal Law for the SQE? Watch https://youtu.be/rU8YsM4KycY
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Last Week’s Question: A woman operates a small private-hire vehicle business from her home and holds an operator’s licence issued by a local authority. An Act of Parliament requires the authority to publish the full residential address of every private-hire operator whose licence is revoked. After the authority revokes her licence for repeated administrative breaches, it publishes her address online. She argues that publication creates a security risk and unjustifiably interferes with her Article 8 rights. The High Court concludes that the statutory requirement is incompatible with Article 8 and cannot be interpreted compatibly without contradicting Parliament’s express wording. Which of the following best describes the court’s powers and the local authority’s position?
A. The court must disapply the statutory provision and order the authority to remove the address immediately.
B. The court may invalidate the statutory provision because Convention rights take priority over inconsistent primary legislation.
C. The court may reinterpret the provision as giving the authority a discretion, even though Parliament expressly excluded one.
D. The court may make a declaration of incompatibility, while the provision remains valid and the authority may rely on the statutory-compulsion defence.
E. The court must dismiss the claim because conduct required by primary legislation cannot be examined under the Human Rights Act.
Correct answer: D. The court may make a declaration of incompatibility, while the provision remains valid and the authority may rely on the statutory-compulsion defence. Feedback: Under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998, courts must interpret legislation compatibly with Convention rights so far as it is possible to do so. However, the court cannot adopt an interpretation that contradicts the express wording or a fundamental feature of the legislation. Here, Parliament has expressly required the local authority to publish the residential address and has given it no discretion. Reading the provision as permitting the authority to withhold the address would contradict the statutory scheme. Where a compatible interpretation is not possible, the High Court may make a declaration of incompatibility under section 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998. The declaration does not invalidate, suspend or disapply the legislation. The statutory provision remains legally effective unless Parliament amends it. Under section 6(1), it is generally unlawful for a public authority to act incompatibly with a Convention right. However, section 6(2) provides a defence where primary legislation required the authority to act as it did and it could not have acted differently. Because the authority had no discretion, it may rely on this statutory-compulsion defence.
The other answers are incorrect because:
A is wrong because domestic courts cannot disapply incompatible primary legislation under the Human Rights Act.
B is wrong because a declaration of incompatibility does not invalidate an Act of Parliament.
C is wrong because section 3 does not permit an interpretation that contradicts Parliament’s express intention.
E is wrong because the court may still examine compatibility and issue a declaration under section 4.
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Dr Ioannis (Yannis) Glinavos
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