Anurag Deb
@anuragdeb.bsky.social
PhD candidate at Queen's University Belfast. Looking at legislative drafting. Interested in devolution, public law, politics and climate change. Mostly unserious takes (anything on Stormont) + a few slightly serious ones (N. Tayto > S. Tayto). He/him
Somehow, I don't think the NI Executive or the NI Assembly want *me* in charge of drafting legislation (but I would have a *lot* of fun 😊)
November 27, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Somehow, I don't think the NI Executive or the NI Assembly want *me* in charge of drafting legislation (but I would have a *lot* of fun 😊)
Lots of interesting things come out of the advisory opinion (2025 INSC 1333 for comparative law nerds like me) but I think this is among the most important: 3/
November 26, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Lots of interesting things come out of the advisory opinion (2025 INSC 1333 for comparative law nerds like me) but I think this is among the most important: 3/
The judgment is currently only available in French or Polish so my understanding is either basic or non-existent (+ Google translate is hardly authoritative as a matter of EU law), BUT: I think this is one of the more significant points: 1/
November 25, 2025 at 11:59 AM
The judgment is currently only available in French or Polish so my understanding is either basic or non-existent (+ Google translate is hardly authoritative as a matter of EU law), BUT: I think this is one of the more significant points: 1/
I had a few US legal academics come for me in the 9th circle of Hell (aka X/Twitter) for a joke about how American law review articles can sometimes be self-indulgent books in disguise.
This is on another level (of dreadful).
This is on another level (of dreadful).
October 30, 2025 at 3:22 PM
I had a few US legal academics come for me in the 9th circle of Hell (aka X/Twitter) for a joke about how American law review articles can sometimes be self-indulgent books in disguise.
This is on another level (of dreadful).
This is on another level (of dreadful).
I am especially fascinated by this bit, as if the tort of defamation is essentially a requirement that you pay for the privilege of trashing someone's reputation (it isn't).
October 28, 2025 at 11:33 AM
I am especially fascinated by this bit, as if the tort of defamation is essentially a requirement that you pay for the privilege of trashing someone's reputation (it isn't).
QUB Law is getting in the Halloween mood with photorealistic depictions of parliamentary sovereignty and the royal prerogative
October 23, 2025 at 3:23 PM
QUB Law is getting in the Halloween mood with photorealistic depictions of parliamentary sovereignty and the royal prerogative
No, it doesn't. The amnesty *itself* (among other things) is under challenge in the UKSC. Does no one read anything before publishing these days?
September 24, 2025 at 5:54 PM
No, it doesn't. The amnesty *itself* (among other things) is under challenge in the UKSC. Does no one read anything before publishing these days?
Proofs on a forthcoming chapter in a collection about Extrajudicial Communication edited by @helenetyrrell.bsky.social and Conall Mallory. This was fun to write 😊
And no: the Marmite toast reference isn't clickbait; one judge had a very special interest in it.
And no: the Marmite toast reference isn't clickbait; one judge had a very special interest in it.
September 19, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Proofs on a forthcoming chapter in a collection about Extrajudicial Communication edited by @helenetyrrell.bsky.social and Conall Mallory. This was fun to write 😊
And no: the Marmite toast reference isn't clickbait; one judge had a very special interest in it.
And no: the Marmite toast reference isn't clickbait; one judge had a very special interest in it.
Omg you mean to tell me that the Legacy approach which had considerably more public buy in and safeguards was in the end the better one to implement?
BBC News - New Troubles legacy deal 'a day and night improvement'
www.bbc.com/news/article...
BBC News - New Troubles legacy deal 'a day and night improvement'
www.bbc.com/news/article...
September 19, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Omg you mean to tell me that the Legacy approach which had considerably more public buy in and safeguards was in the end the better one to implement?
BBC News - New Troubles legacy deal 'a day and night improvement'
www.bbc.com/news/article...
BBC News - New Troubles legacy deal 'a day and night improvement'
www.bbc.com/news/article...
And Dillon isn't the only case which presents a problem for the report. In NIHRC & JR295, Humphreys J arrives at the same conclusion as Dillon (note, JR295 predated the Court of Appeal in Dillon, meaning Humphreys J came to this conclusion without being bound by Dillon):
![Reading the B-GFA as a whole, it is apparent that its provisions and protections were broad in scope. As part of it, the UK Government undertook to incorporate the full sweep of ECHR rights into the law of Northern Ireland and make them directly enforceable in the courts. In Dillon Colton J held that the concept of “civil rights” encompasses “the political, social and economic rights which are recognised as the entitlement of every member of a community, and which can be upheld by appeal to the law.” (para [543]). By this measure, the rights of asylum seekers must come within the definition. In arriving at this conclusion, I have not found it necessary to engage with the “generous and purposive approach” advocated by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties but have relied on a first principles approach to the interpretation of the document.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bd4hjk56meownjkypm2xhk5b/bafkreig7beyxdsf6ea6taa2fzsnpdmz2xrrymhi7affyorriidurjaeviq@jpeg)
September 3, 2025 at 1:51 PM
And Dillon isn't the only case which presents a problem for the report. In NIHRC & JR295, Humphreys J arrives at the same conclusion as Dillon (note, JR295 predated the Court of Appeal in Dillon, meaning Humphreys J came to this conclusion without being bound by Dillon):
Post a movie from the year you were born.
I was born in a pretty great year for film, but it had to be this one:
I was born in a pretty great year for film, but it had to be this one:
August 29, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Post a movie from the year you were born.
I was born in a pretty great year for film, but it had to be this one:
I was born in a pretty great year for film, but it had to be this one:
Today is Indian Independence Day. Sam Dalrymple's recent work, Shattered Lands, is a fascinating and engaging look at how the violent and tragic 1947 Partition was one in a series which tore up families, cultures and histories across a vast swathe of Asia. But it was also a personal read 1/
August 15, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Today is Indian Independence Day. Sam Dalrymple's recent work, Shattered Lands, is a fascinating and engaging look at how the violent and tragic 1947 Partition was one in a series which tore up families, cultures and histories across a vast swathe of Asia. But it was also a personal read 1/
True, but I come from a religion where godhood in its female aspects is prominent alongside its masculine aspects & Hinduism is far, far, from a post-patriarchal utopia. Instead, women are often violently defined only through certain traits of divine femininity. No prizes for guessing which ones.
August 13, 2025 at 3:38 PM
True, but I come from a religion where godhood in its female aspects is prominent alongside its masculine aspects & Hinduism is far, far, from a post-patriarchal utopia. Instead, women are often violently defined only through certain traits of divine femininity. No prizes for guessing which ones.
But what about the Sex Equality in Goods and Services Directive? Recitals 16 + 17 of the Directive say this:
2/
2/
August 8, 2025 at 8:38 AM
But what about the Sex Equality in Goods and Services Directive? Recitals 16 + 17 of the Directive say this:
2/
2/
And the CJEU continues to have relevance in broad swathes of NI equality law. E.g. this, from Richards in 2004 (yes, it was a pension age case but its central point derives from sex equality in primary EU law, not the directive at issue) could not be clearer: acquired, not birth gender, is key:
1/
1/
August 8, 2025 at 8:38 AM
And the CJEU continues to have relevance in broad swathes of NI equality law. E.g. this, from Richards in 2004 (yes, it was a pension age case but its central point derives from sex equality in primary EU law, not the directive at issue) could not be clearer: acquired, not birth gender, is key:
1/
1/
Arrived this morning 😀
August 7, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Arrived this morning 😀
Interesting places where my PhD continues to take me, part 651: the watermelon cheque
July 30, 2025 at 10:29 PM
Interesting places where my PhD continues to take me, part 651: the watermelon cheque
Lord Leggatt's Shvidler dissent ironically reminded me of:
"Who writes the extraordinary dissent? The one man minority decision whose time hasn't come but 20 years later, some circuit court clerk digs it up at 3 in the morning. Brennan rallying against censorship, Harlan's jeremiad on Jim Crow?"
"Who writes the extraordinary dissent? The one man minority decision whose time hasn't come but 20 years later, some circuit court clerk digs it up at 3 in the morning. Brennan rallying against censorship, Harlan's jeremiad on Jim Crow?"
![Shvidler [2025] UKSC 30, [254].](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bd4hjk56meownjkypm2xhk5b/bafkreiak5zp6yjgrqwxzg4r4ztjaw6tsuy3c2jfx4ok7heeohqzchgu644@jpeg)
July 29, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Lord Leggatt's Shvidler dissent ironically reminded me of:
"Who writes the extraordinary dissent? The one man minority decision whose time hasn't come but 20 years later, some circuit court clerk digs it up at 3 in the morning. Brennan rallying against censorship, Harlan's jeremiad on Jim Crow?"
"Who writes the extraordinary dissent? The one man minority decision whose time hasn't come but 20 years later, some circuit court clerk digs it up at 3 in the morning. Brennan rallying against censorship, Harlan's jeremiad on Jim Crow?"
At some point, I'd like to look at this (arguably quite recent) phenomenon of the Supreme Court saying "no" to its own judgments from, like, yesterday.
Yes, I know Safe Access Zones was a larger panel than Ziegler, but the point still stands.
Yes, I know Safe Access Zones was a larger panel than Ziegler, but the point still stands.
![Shivdler v FCDO Secretary [2025] UKSC 30](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bd4hjk56meownjkypm2xhk5b/bafkreiewmfjpb3hpzjielgtd3o6b5ibeqb3ywxne2z3dlugwpyasxtbehi@jpeg)
July 29, 2025 at 10:09 AM
At some point, I'd like to look at this (arguably quite recent) phenomenon of the Supreme Court saying "no" to its own judgments from, like, yesterday.
Yes, I know Safe Access Zones was a larger panel than Ziegler, but the point still stands.
Yes, I know Safe Access Zones was a larger panel than Ziegler, but the point still stands.
Happy Pride Belfast 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
July 26, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Happy Pride Belfast 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
So the unadulterated shit in question is a magical incantation in 4 easy-to-follow steps 😊
July 21, 2025 at 10:06 AM
So the unadulterated shit in question is a magical incantation in 4 easy-to-follow steps 😊
From the 3rd of Chamberlain J's judgments on this, which the EWCA overturned, for, among other things, Chamberlain J's failure to appreciate the consequences of discharging the injunction at that stage. Would Parliament have had time to successfully pressure the government into a better arrangement?
![MoD v Global Media and ors [2024] EWHC 1220 (KB), para 47: "The size and import of the decisions now being taken, both in
moral and in financial terms, bring this point into sharp relief. It is fundamentally
objectionable for decisions that affect the lives and safety of thousands of human beings, and involve the commitment of billions of pounds of public money, to be taken in
circumstances where they are completely insulated from public debate."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bd4hjk56meownjkypm2xhk5b/bafkreifxtfvztuw3gsni3e6viuyriswxbr6ceaws3xr7uzfp4zipmzqxym@jpeg)
July 15, 2025 at 12:36 PM
From the 3rd of Chamberlain J's judgments on this, which the EWCA overturned, for, among other things, Chamberlain J's failure to appreciate the consequences of discharging the injunction at that stage. Would Parliament have had time to successfully pressure the government into a better arrangement?