Joining the Robert Walker Law Essay Competition was an incredible and insightful experience.
Not only did it give me the opportunity to research and learn about different types of law that I've never come across, but I also learnt how to apply the laws appropriately. For example, I have not only learned what the Equality Act is but also how to apply different sections of it to the context of the question being raised (whether any legal issues would arise from banning the sale of tobacco to a specific age group of people born after 2008). However, this was not an easy process as I spent two months slowly researching the content of each Act and working very hard to analyse each section, seeing if they are applicable to the question.
I found the raised question very fascinating. The first thing that came to my mind was that even though this ban might be a draconian but effective top-down strategy to create a smoke-free and healthier population, which would boost the productivity and the national economy, it is discriminatory and a violation of human rights as it only targets a specific age group or generation, also stripping them of their right to a private life.
Furthermore, another interesting thing I realised is that the UK has parliamentary sovereignty, meaning that parliament has the right to make any law and that no one else has the right to override it. This therefore implies that there's no legal, but instead political, consequence to the ban, in a sense that the parliament can accept the political cost and confront why they have to violate the human right.
Finally, for anyone who is interested in joining this kind of essay competition, my advice would be to incorporate a detailed analysis of the application of sections coming under each act or type of law being concerned in your essay. Good Luck!
Sophie, SFC1
A huge congratulations to Sophie whose essay received Highly Commended (top 10%).
We'd like to set cookies to understand how you use this site. We use services such as YouTube, Flockler and Hireroad that may also use third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our Cookies Policy.
We use these for core functionality, such as storing this cookie consent preference. These are loaded automatically and cannot be disabled by the user.
We use Google Analytics to track visits to our website and how users interact with our website. This helps us improve the way our website works.
We use Google Ads Conversions & Facebook Pixel to measure how you use and interact with our website and with our advertisements.
These cookies may be set by third party websites and do things like measure how you view videos or other content that is embedded on our site.
