All articles by Catherine Baksi – Page 30
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News
Most criminal firms to snub PCT contracts
Only two of the 25 top-earning criminal legal aid firms will bid for a contract if the government’s current scheme for price-competitive tendering (PCT) is introduced – and more than half would support a boycott, a poll by the Gazette can exclusively reveal. The Gazette this ...
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Gateway aims to help vulnerable
Sexual offending against children by Jimmy Savile has focused attention on how the criminal justice system treats young and vulnerable complainants and witnesses, attorney general Dominic Grieve QC said last week. However, Grieve rejected the idea of dispensing with the adversarial system for cases involving ...
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Bar: legal aid plans will ‘irreversibly undermine access’
The Bar Council has called on the Ministry of Justice to reconsider its ‘discriminatory’ legal aid cuts that it warns will ‘irreversibly undermine access to justice’ and create a two-tier service. It is urging all barristers to write to their MPs alerting them to the dangers ...
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State must provide ‘genuine access’ – Neuberger’s rebuke to government
The president of the Supreme Court has warned that denying access to the courts could create an exploitative society that might ultimately fail - and he called on lawyers to help ensure the justice system works. Delivering the first Harbour Litigation Funding lecture, Lord Neuberger said ...
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‘Going to court was worse than the abuse’
‘You can’t be certain that you think that it wasn’t possible that you filled in the first side of the form?’ If you struggled for a moment with that question, imagine how it must have felt for a defendant with learning difficulties who was asked it ...
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Massive rise in cross-border family disputes
The number of cross-border family legal disputes referred to a UK judge has grown tenfold in a decade and more than doubled in the past two years, according to an organisation set up to facilitate transnational judicial collaboration. The annual report of the Office of the ...
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Contempt jailings should never be secret, leading judges warn
No one found guilty of contempt should be jailed in secret, two of the country’s most senior judges have declared in a strong stand for open justice. The lord chief justice Lord Judge (pictured) and Sir James Munby, who is both head of the High Court’s ...
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News
Taxpayer to foot bill for interpreter pay rise
A 22% hike in payments to courtroom interpreters is set to knock a large hole in savings forecast by the government under its ill-starred initiative to contract out the service.
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PCT bidders risk flouting conduct code
Solicitors who bid for the proposed new criminal legal aid contracts risk breaching the Code of Conduct, the Law Society’s head of legal aid policy has warned. Richard Miller told a conference last week that adhering to the model devised by the Ministry of Justice ...
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Two-year consultation bears fruit with updated property forms
The Law Society has produced long-awaited updated property forms designed to make buying and selling homes easier. Following a consultation process that began two years ago, the Property Information Form (TA6) and Fitting and Contents Form (TA10) have been revised. The new ...
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Grayling’s prison clampdown is a smokescreen, says association chair
Reforms to prison privileges announced by the justice secretary today have been condemned as ‘cheap shots’ to ‘whip up prejudice’ and create a ‘smokescreen’ to detract from legal aid cuts. The chair of the Association of Prison Lawyers, Andrew Sperling, questioned why Chris Grayling had decided ...
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Criminal legal aid reforms ‘potentially unlawful’ - Society
The Law Society has called for a complete rethink of the government’s ‘economically unworkable’ and ‘potentially unlawful’ criminal legal aid proposals. In a policy document published online yesterday, the Society said: ‘No amount of tinkering with the system of procurement will solve that fundamental difficulty’ with ...
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News
‘Mayhem’ threat as Wales votes against QASA
Lawyers could cause ‘mayhem’ to the criminal justice system in protest over the government’s legal aid reforms, the leader of the Wales and Chester circuit has warned after barristers in Wales voted unanimously to boycott the controversial quality assessment scheme. Speaking to the Gazette today, Gregory ...
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News
Society endorses ‘a la carte’ advice – but warns of risks
Family lawyers offering ‘pay as you go’ legal services are warned of the risks they carry and how to avoid them in a practice note published today by the Law Society. The note has been published to assist solicitors seeking to offer a more affordable service ...
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News
Revealed: Grayling's plan to drive a wedge between bar and solicitors
Justice secretary Chris Grayling has sought to drive a wedge between solicitors and barristers over the drastic plans to cut criminal legal aid and restructure the market, the Gazette has learned. At a meeting attended by circuit leaders and civil servants yesterday, Grayling said that ...
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News
QASA gets go-ahead from bar regulator
The Bar Standards Board has approved the handbook for the controversial Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates. At the regulator’s meeting last night, lay member Malcolm Cohen was the sole dissenting voice. He told the board: ‘The scheme is not proportionate to the perceived risk and I ...
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News
MoJ announces new deal for courtroom interpreters
The Ministry of Justice today announced measures which it said would increase the take-home pay of interpreters in a bid to improve the quality of the service to courts and the justice sector.
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News
Stress rising among lawyers – LawCare
Three-quarters of lawyers say they are more stressed now than they were five years ago, according to a survey by legal charity LawCare. Responses from more than 1,000 solicitors, barristers and legal executives blamed overwork, poor management, lack of appreciation, and feeling isolated or unsupported. ...
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Rape figures show all-time high in conviction rate
Conviction rates for rape have risen to an all-time high, according to figures published by the Crown Prosecution Service today. The statistics reveal that from April 2012 to the end of March 2013 the CPS prosecuted 3,692 rape cases. Of those, 63.2% resulted in convictions, up ...
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CPS: Keir Starmer to step down after five-year term
Keir Starmer QC will step down as director of public prosecutions later this year, the Crown Prosecution Service announced today. Former human rights barrister Starmer, 51, who took up the post in 2008, has indicated that he will not seek to extend his five-year term of ...