How are civil hearings being conducted?
The majority of hearings are taking place by video or phone.
Court guidance has been issued on telephone and video hearings during the coronavirus outbreak:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hmcts-telephone-and-video-hearings-during-coronavirus-outbreak
Where a Judge orders “teleconferencing”, it will take place using BTMeetMe, or video conferencing using Skype for Business or Cloud Video Platform.
All hearings are subject to the relevant jurisdictional rules and practice directions and usual court etiquette, including wearing appropriate attire and not eating or drinking during a hearing.
Electronic bundles of documents and authorities (if required) need to be prepared, indexed and paginated and sent to the Court well in advance of any hearing.
Related FAQs
Many employees require flexible working now more than ever. That could be reduced hours, working from home, reduced days, etc. Be careful to act fairly when considering these requests as they can be a discrimination claim in the waiting.
A flexible working request is a request for a permanent change to the contract of employment however to encourage a greater take up during this difficult time, you can agree this on a temporary basis.
The Commission has provided guidance as to measures which Member States can introduce without notification. These include:
- Measures which apply to all businesses within a Member State (for example the furloughing measures introduced by the UK Government)
- Measures providing support direct to consumers
- Measures which are already exempt from the notification requirement (discussed further below).
To respond to the crisis the European Commission has also issued a temporary framework to provide a basis for emergency aid to be notified for approval. The framework is initially in place until 31 December 2020. The Commission continues to keep this under review and has twice widened its scope to allow more types of aid to be notified. The type of measures covered include:
- The provision of guarantees (including guarantees for 100% of loans)
- The provision of loans at low interest rates, at zero interest rates or subordinated to senior debt
- Measures to support liquidity needs or to alleviate difficulties caused by the current crisis
- Measures to recapitalise businesses
- Measures to assist sectors hit particularly hard by the current crisis (eg transport)
- Measures targeted at COVID-19 such as research and development or production of products related to tackling the virus
The Commission has approved a UK Government “umbrella” notification to allow UK public authorities to adopt the measures permitted by the Commission framework. Therefore public authorities in the UK can use the Framework without notifying individual measures or schemes to the Commission.
The new rules for wearing face masks/face coverings in the workplace introduced on 23 September 2020 are as follows:
- Staff in retail, including shops, supermarkets and shopping centres, will now have to wear a face covering
- Staff in hospitality will now have to wear a face covering
- Guidance stating that face coverings and visors should be worn in close contact services, such as hairdressers and beauticians, will now become law
- Staff working on public transport and taxi drivers will continue to be advised to wear face coverings
You can take off your mask if:
- You who need to eat, drink, or take medication
- A police officer or other official asks you to
Hopefully, further guidance will provide additional clarification on this, but it is difficult to see how a charity whose operations have been significantly curtailed because of the Covid-19 restrictions, cannot furlough employees and access the scheme, in particular where they have several different income streams. For example if a charity’s retail or fundraising operations have been significantly curtailed due to the restrictions, then it would appear unfair for it not to able to rely on the furlough scheme to assist in the funding of the employment costs associated with this part of the charity.
However, it might be prudent, where there are services that are publicly funded and employees working within those services cannot undertake their normal work, to consider if they can do different roles to work on Covid-19 activities. If there is no such work available then the guidance does appear to allow the furloughing of employees and such organisations to access the scheme.
In our experience, the funding streams and work undertaken by the organisations that could fall into the third category identified above can be exceptionally diverse and we would strongly recommend that you take advice before making such decisions about furloughing employees.
Yes. The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Coronavirus) (England) (Amendment) Order 2020 came into force on 9 April 2020 giving permitted development rights for emergency development. The permitted development right is available to local authorities and health service bodies (as defined) on land owned, leased, occupied or maintained by it for the purposes of:
- Preventing an emergency
- Reducing, controlling or mitigating the effects of an emergency
- Taking other action in connection with an emergency
It could cover, for example, the temporary change of use of buildings into a Nightingale Hospital or the establishment of a testing centre.
The permitted development right is not permitted in certain instances and is subject to a number of conditions including the notification of the local planning authority and the cessation of the use before 31 December 2020.
Further detail of the permitted development right is available at the link below.