SARAH Act Receives Royal Assent

The Social Act, Responsibility and Heroism Act received Royal Assent on 12th February 2015, although the commencement date has not yet been set.

The so called SARAH Act has noble intentions and will require Courts to consider the context of an action that is the subject of a liability claim, hopefully allowing people to carry out good deeds without worrying about the risk of liability should something go wrong.

However, there has been much opposition to the Act on the basis that legislation does not alter the current law of negligence and the concepts it contains are hard to define in practice.

Lord Faulks, on behalf of the Government, has argued that requiring courts to consider whether defendants had acted generally responsibly with regard to the safety of others represented a change in the law.