How does assignment relate to what we are doing in scheduled sessions?

·         Differentiate between the European Union legal aspects and the UK legal aspects of any given set of facts, with a breadth of knowledge across the entire spectrum of EU Law.

·         Identify and analyse relevant EU legal sources and apply these to a given set of facts to produce correct conclusions and advice.

For this assessment, you are required to submit a 3,000-word case study on the following scenario, in the form of a legal memorandum.

The case study concerns the phenomena of direct effect, indirect effect and state liability, and will test your ability to use these doctrines – unique to EU law – to resolve a given hypothetical problem scenario. This exercise will test your abilities to apply law to fact, and to solve problems. It will require you to analyse a hypothetical problem and to research the legal issues, which it gives rise to and finally to prepare a report for your client offering them legal advice based on the application of the law to the scenario.

Scenario:

Gabrielle and Pierre, both French nationals but UK permanent residents, have been living in the UK for quite a long time and have recently expanded their family, by welcoming their first son, Mathias, in the spring 2018. Both Pierre and Gabrielle work for the NHS in London, but they frequently travel to the Yorkshire Dales to spend their holidays there.

During the 2018 Christmas break, they decided to spend a few days in a hotel, ‘The Lovely Dales Inn’, located in the heart of Yorkshire Dales. Since Gabrielle and Pierre were travelling with their son Mathias, they booked a family room and were given a cot bed. One evening, the family decided to have dinner at a nearby restaurant called ‘The hungry duck’: once seated at their table, Pierre and Gabrielle were told that all the highchairs were already in use and that the restaurant had no nappy change. Being very upset about these issues, the couple decided to leave the restaurant without having dinner first. However, given that they had already placed the order, the manager of the restaurant charged them the 50% of the cost the food they ordered but did not eat.

Once back at their hotel, Pierre and Gabrielle had a chat with the hotel manager and learned of the existence of a EU legislation protecting families against disparate treatment. According to the (fictitious) directive 2017/34, retail and catering businesses are in fact required to have and provide the ‘essential equipment to host families with children, and avoid any discrimination against them’. The deadline for the transposition of (fictitious) directive 2017/34 was the 30^th November 2018: the UK has yet to implement this directive. Nevertheless, according to Statutory Provision No. 70/1990, retail and catering businesses are required to have at least one highchair to be provided to customers when needed.

Gabrielle and Pierre strongly believe that the both the lack of a nappy change unit and the availability of only a few highchairs represent two violations of the EU directive. Therefore, once back in London in January 2019, they reach your legal firm and ask your advice as to what rights they might have under EU Law and whether they can rely on any provision of EU law to bring an action before a UK court or tribunal. Furthermore, they ask you whether the circumstance that they are not British nationals but only French nationals could prevent them from being entitled to bring an action before a UK court or tribunal relying on EU provisions.

Write a legal memorandum setting out the advice to Gabrielle and Pierre.

Note on academic integrity: in all assessments, you are expected to adhere strictly to the principles of academic integrity. All written assignments are submitted electronically and checked for originality through Turnitin. In addition, should any doubt arise as to whether the written work submitted for assessment is your own work, you will be called by the unit coordinator for the purpose of a viva voce examination on the assignment.

1.       Identify at least some of the legal issues arising from the scenario and apply the relevant EU provisions and principles in order to provide basic but correct legal advice, and

2.       Present your advice in clear and grammatically correct manner; reference all of your sources in accordance with good academic practice.

In your scheduled sessions, you will familiarise with all substantive aspects of the law of the EU which are relevant to the present case study and you will learn how EU Law principles and norms can be used to resolve practical cases. In addition, you will learn how to adopt a critical approach when analyzing current EU law issues. Critical analysis will be encouraged both during lectures, with discussion points testing your ability to link EU principles together and applying them in practice, and seminars/workshops, during which you will have the opportunity to actively participate in the learning process by presenting legal arguments on a real or fictional set of facts in a concise, logical and well-structured manner.

Your assignment will be marked according to the threshold expectations and the criteria in the table below.

You can use them to evaluate your own work and consider your grade before you submit.