About this event
The Supreme Court has overturned the 2014 decision (Cheshire West) which had led to hundreds of thousands of people being considered to be deprived of their liberty, many of them unlawfully. A new, much narrower, but more complex, definition of deprivation of liberty is given instead.
In an application by the Attorney General of Northern Ireland (so called the “AGNI” case), the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court was handed down on 2 June 2026.
The reasoning will have huge implications across health and social care, and though the intention is clearly to reduce the number of people considered to be deprived of their liberty (especially in their own homes and in hospital for medical treatment, and – in any setting – where they are “happy”), the loss of the now familiar acid test in Cheshire West is likely to create uncertainty and more litigation for some time.
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