UK Supreme Court Blog

EDITORS: Dan Tench, Emma Cross, Zainab Hodgson, Francesca Knight, James Warshaw and Natalie Haefner (CMS)
Hugh Tomlinson KC, Matthew Ryder KC, Dévante Gravesande-Smith and Rebecca Khan (Matrix)

The case of Sugar v BBC & Anor (on appeal from [2010] EWCA Civ 715), which was due to be heard on the 9th and 10th February, has been withdrawn from the list of hearings and relisted for November. [Update] As noted by Martin Rosebaum on the BBC Open Secrets blog the adjournment follows the death last month of the claimant, Steven Sugar.   The Balen Report – which although not made public has its own Wikipedia entry – was written in 2004 and examined the BBC’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.   Mr Rosenbaum notes that Mr Sugar’s original request was made on 8 January 2005 – shortly after the FOIA came into force and that

“The Supreme Court says that it has now listed the case provisionally for another hearing in the autumn. It seems unlikely that a judgment would then be handed down before 2012, over seven years after Mr Sugar’s initial request”.