Last 3 months headlines – Page 1587
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A five-year Action Plan for justice in the EU
The UK has been going through waves of Cleggmania, but has largely ignored the EU as it undergoes the process of how it will be governed for the next five years. Now the EU has published its own plans for the next five years in the justice sector.
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Jackson report: litigation processes and their impact on costs
Much has already been said about Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals for success fees, after-the-event insurance, costs shifting and the like, but much less, if anything, about litigation processes, and their impact on costs. Yet it is surely unarguable that a streamlining or simplification of the litigation process would result in ...
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Nationwide removes 300 firms from its conveyancing panel
Nationwide Group has shed around 300 firms from its conveyancing panel in what is understood to be a ‘risk-based review’. The Law Society has immediately entered into discussions with the lender. The group covers mortgages provided by Nationwide; the Mortgage Works; ...
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Surge in new laws sparked by recession, research reveals
Some 98% of new laws introduced by the government in 2009 were brought in as statutory instruments without full parliamentary debate, research has revealed today. Data from legal information provider Sweet & Maxwell showed that the number of laws introduced by the government during the last ...
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A furore over the sex offenders register
An 11-year-old boy who raped a six-year-old girl should have been given the death penalty. Or perhaps just branded with a hot iron and put on the sex offenders register for life.
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Malaysian Human Rights Commission criticises treatment of lawyers
The Law Society has welcomed a report by the Malaysian Human Rights Commission published today which finds that the arrest of five legal aid lawyers last year was unlawful. The lawyers were called to the police station to represent clients who had been arrested for attending ...
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Media: British Chiropractic Association v Dr Simon Singh
While the northern hemisphere is paralysed by the seismic shift that has caused the Icelandic volcano, Mt Eyjafjallajökull, to erupt, the case of the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) against Dr Simon Singh promises to have an equally seismic effect on the legal landscape of libel in the UK and the ...
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Family law
Cafcass – Children – Contract orders – Removal from jurisdiction Re D (a child): CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Wall, Aikens): 8 April 2010 The appellant father (F) appealed ...
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Civil procedure
Employment – Transport – Balance of convenience – Industrial action Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd v National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers: QBD (Mrs Justice Sharp): 1 April 2010 ...
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No pain no gain
There is such a thing as a glutton for punishment, and it seems that is what the Legal Services Commission must be.
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The sour smell of failure
As prosecutors and defence lawyers know only too well, criminals can be pretty, well, gormless is the word – or the ones who get caught can be, at any rate. Obiter has spotted a wealth of stories about foolish offenders recently. There was 68-year-old John Maurice, who was sentenced last ...
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Slithery customer
Obiter is grateful to professor Phil Thomas of Cardiff Law School for sending in a news snippet from the Hindu English language newspaper in India. A four-foot snake slithered into a judge’s chambers last month, and had to be ‘rescued’ by Fire and ...
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Higher court
Obiter was tickled to receive this picture issued by the Press Association of Sir John Dyson, who was sworn in as the 12th and final justice of the new Supreme Court this week. Is it just us, or does it look for all ...
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Playing with fire
Solicitors are notably risk averse and can be relied on, in Obiter’s long experience, to spot a dozen dire threats where others see only tranquility. And yet just last week this column witnessed a roomful of the profession’s finest demonstrate unblinking insouciance in the face of near certain incineration. The ...
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Keep on running
Sedentary Obiter doffs a cap to Jeffrey Gordon, a 76-year-old criminal defence solicitor from Battersea who is set to run the London Marathon for the 30th time this year. Gordon is one of a group of indefatigable runners known as the ‘ever presents’ who have completed the event every year ...
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Ending acrimony
Employment disputes must rank alongside family disputes as the most emotional proceedings a person can instigate. Both involve the potential breakdown of a relationship which may have lasted many years (or been expected to do so), and a situation where the loss of trust and confidence may leave a person ...
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State of the unions
Unlike my old classmate Chris Cox, director of legal services at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), I was delighted with the president’s response to the Damages-Based Agreements Regulations (DBAs) (see [2010] Gazette, 15 April, 11). At last there was official recognition of the true position of the unions on ...
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For legal aid not to suffer cuts the public needs to care
by Jon Robinsco-author of The Justice Gap and director of the legal research company Jures. You can download Closing the Justice Gap Legal aid is a tiny, albeit vital, backwater of our public services which has critical importance in our democratic society, yet fails to resonate ...
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Co-op's commercial logic is being applied to the legal sector
The Co-op is determined to be in the first wave of alternative business structures. This does not necessarily mean that other supermarket groups will swiftly follow suit, however. It is instructive to look at their experiences in financial services.