All articles by Joshua Rozenberg – Page 16
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There should be no rigid threshold determining a prisoner’s right to vote
Spare a thought for Mark Harper, junior minister at the Cabinet Office who is responsible for political and constitutional reform. A chartered accountant by training, he finds himself responsible for reducing the number of his fellow MPs; for introducing fixed-term parliaments; and for answering the unanswerable West Lothian question. But ...
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Has Nick Clegg been 'mugged by reality' on control orders?
Will the government abolish control orders? Or are unconvicted terrorist suspects still going to have their movements and contacts restricted under these much-criticised ‘gag and tag’ orders? ‘Control orders cannot continue in their current form,’ insisted the deputy prime minister last week. ‘They must be replaced.’ ...
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Disgraced MPs broke new legal ground last week
The hour before lunch last Friday was a bad one for two former Labour MPs. First, the High Court ruled that an election court had acted lawfully when it found Phil Woolas guilty of an ‘illegal practice’. There was just time to hear Woolas announce that he would not be ...
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Lord chief justice fears new threats to jury trial
There must have been sighs of relief at the Ministry of Justice last week when officials realised that they would not be required to abolish trial by jury. The threat this time was not from the department’s grandly titled Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses. Louise Casey’s absurd demand this month ...
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Concern over use of 'Henry Vlll' powers to overturn acts of parliament
The coalition’s approach to legislation is neither conservative nor liberal. That much is clear from the new Quangos (Bonfire) Bill, or the Public Bodies Bill as it is more properly called in parliament. It is through this legislation that the government intends to reform nearly 500 ...
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New book offers intriguing analysis of role of feminist judges
Is it possible to be both a judge and a feminist? That’s the intriguing question posed by Baroness Hale in her foreword to a fascinating new book, Feminist Judgments from Theory to Practice (Hart Publishing, £22.95). Hale is, of course, the UK’s most senior woman judge. ...
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UK still has a judiciary to be proud of
The formal reprimand issued to His Honour George Bathurst-Norman last week is the most serious of the disciplinary powers available to the lord chief justice in cases of judicial misconduct, short of suspension or removal from office. Those latter powers would not have been appropriate for Bathurst-Norman because he had ...
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Will the Supreme Court survive the coalition's purge of public bodies?
Tomorrow, the UK Supreme Court celebrates its first anniversary. Might it also be the court’s last? According to proposals leaked from the Cabinet Office and published by the BBC last week, the future of Britain’s highest court was still shrouded in uncertainly as recently as 26 August.
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The Law Commission wants to move from criminal to civil penalties
What is the criminal law for? That deceptively simple question was addressed recently in a masterly paper by Professor Jeremy Horder, issued just a few days before he completed his term as the commissioner responsible for advising ministers on reform of the criminal law. As a ...
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Are Supreme Court justices more assertive than they were as law lords?
The president of the Supreme Court and his second-in-command could be forgiven for the enthusiasm with which they welcomed reporters to an end-of term briefing last week. ‘We think our first year has been a success,’ said Lord Phillips, with justifiable pride. The move from ...
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The MoJ’s structural reform plan replaces targets with timetables
At last, we have some idea of what the Ministry of Justice is planning to do during the coming months. It was one of the first departments to publish its so-called structural reform plan, setting out how it will implement the coalition agreement. We can gloss ...
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Does the UK need a comprehensive constitutional framework?
This week’s announcement of a referendum on whether MPs should be elected under the alternative vote system is the latest example of Britain’s piecemeal approach to constitutional reform. Surely we should step back and take a broader view of how we govern the UK?
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MPs' expenses abuse case raises issues fundamental to the rule of law
Three former MPs and a peer will ask the Court of Appeal next week to rule that the Crown court has no jurisdiction to try them on charges of false accounting. Elliott Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Lord Hanningfield deny supplying false information in support of their expenses claims. ...
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We have only vague pledges from the government
By rights, I should be analysing parliament’s legislative programme this week. Five weeks after a general election, you would expect to be reading about the latest crop of government bills.
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Leading international law experts overlook high-profile failures
Ditchley Park is a sublimely beautiful 18th century mansion in Oxfordshire where the Ditchley Foundation holds impeccably well-run conferences on international affairs. Last weekend, the state of international law was debated by some of the world’s leading experts. I was there too.
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Can the hundreds unable to vote at the general election sue?
People who were denied the right to vote at the general election can sue the Electoral Commission, according to Geoffrey Robertson QC. Interviewed last Friday, Robertson suggested that disenfranchised voters would receive compensation of at least £750. That just happens to be the figure that ...
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Will parliamentary privilege protect ex-MPs from prosecution over expenses?
In a month’s time, lawyers for three former Labour MPs will try to persuade Mr Justice Saunders that he has no jurisdiction to try them on charges of false accounting.
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Lord chief justice has emphasised the importance of judicial independence
If there is one legal issue that’s likely to make headlines during the election campaign, it is human rights. So there was some surprise when the lord chief justice touched on such a controversial topic in a speech released just a few days before the election was called – even ...
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Scotland’s high street solicitors are on the march against ‘Tesco law’
The government wants to open up the legal market and give consumers more choice by lifting restrictions that prevent solicitors from working in business structures that include non-lawyers. Sounds familiar? Not when I tell you that the government’s plans were almost derailed last week by high ...
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Proposals to restrict the right to prosecute ‘universal jurisdiction’ offences
Lawfare was first defined in 2001 as ‘the use of law as a weapon of war’. Last week, it was the focus of an important conference in New York organised by the newly-established Lawfare Project. The metaphor of war is never far from the courtroom. ...