Dr Nicholas Bevan

Dr Nicholas Bevan
www.nicholasbevan.com

Wednesday 4 October 2017

BREAKING A SILENCE

I suspended this blog last year for several reasons.  The chief of which had to do with my close involvement in what is probably the widest ranging judicial review of the UK implementation of European law in legal history.  I refer to the ongoing judicial review in R (on the application of RoadPeace) v Secretary of State for Transport & MIB 2017 that challenges the UK's transposition of the EU Directive 2009/103/EC on motor insurance. 

In mid-2015 I briefed a leading road safety charity RoadPeace on the urgent need for reform and I introduced them to the wonderful Richard Stein at Leigh Day solicitors.  Richard assembled a first-rate team led by Jeremy Hyam QC from 1 Crown Office Row to challenge the UK’s failure to implement the Motor Insurance Directives so there seemed little point in continuing to blog from the side-lines when I was providing academic advice in proceedings that raised the same challenges.

So why after over a year’s silence am I resuming this blog? 

Here are some of the reasons:

1. The need to counteract the continuing uncertainty caused by the delayed judgment in the R (on the application of RoadPeace) v Secretary of State for Transport .  The case was heard over 2 days in mid February 2017 and was largely confined to academic / black letter comparative law matters, without the need for lay testimony or expert evidence. It is to be hoped that the Hon Mr Justice Ouseley will deliver his judgment soon.

2. The increasingly imminent prospect of Brexit and the potentially limited shelf life of EU law rights and remedies.  See my New Law Journal Article ‘Catching An Ebbing Tide’, 9 June 2017.


3. The misinformation within the Department for Transport’s official report into its 2016 consultation on Damijan Vnuik. The report omits any reference to the concerns expressed by a number of informed respondents about the government continuing failure to undertake a proper and wide-ranging review of its national law implementation of the European Motor Insurance Directives and / or to remedy these defects; consultation on a discrete aspect of its failings is no answer to the need for full and proper implementation. See my New Law Journal article ‘Car Crash Consultation’ 27 January 2017

4. The European Commission’s consultation on reforming Directive 2009/103/EC on motor insurance.  Several law firms have asked me to advise on how to respond.

 5. The need to draw attention to new European Court of Justice rulings, including Fidelidade Case C-287/16) (see my New Law Journal Article ‘Inception Deception’ of 1 September 2017)  and to a spate of references for preliminary rulings seeking further clarification on the Motor Insurance Directives.

6. Advances in automated vehicle technology require a more comprehensive review of UK law than is apparent from the previous government’s flawed proposals set out in the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill 2017.See my New Law Journal Article ‘The Road Ahead’ 2 September 2016.

7. Lastly and by no means least, the concern that many experienced personal injury and insurance lawyers and members of the judiciary are still not properly acquainted with the correct EU law standard of compensatory protection, the UK’s defective transposition of this law and an even greater number of lawyers who appear to be unfamiliar the relevant EU law remedies.  

These are some serious allegations here that I will make a start in justifying some of this in the following posts:



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