All articles by Michael Cross – Page 115
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News
Human rights test case call for sharia law
A ‘parallel’ system of justice based on Islamic law should face a test case under the Human Rights Act, a group campaigning against religious laws said this week. The One Law for All Campaign called for a case to be initiated to determine whether Muslim arbitration tribunals and sharia councils ...
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Tributes paid to solicitor-judge Henry Hodge
The lord chief justice has led tributes to Sir Henry Hodge, one of the first solicitors to become a High Court judge, who died last week aged 65. Lord Judge said that Hodge had been ‘an outstanding president of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, a ...
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Judicial hurdles hamper recovery of looted assets, says transparency group
International efforts to block the looting of poor countries by corrupt governments are hampered by the lack of a single body to combat money laundering in the UK, according to a government-sponsored study. Combating money laundering and recovering looted gains, by Transparency International, calls on the government to fund asset-recovery ...
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Family courts in ‘unseemly gallop’ to open to press
The opening of family courts to the press is ‘moving at an unseemly gallop’, a leading high court judge in the family division said last week. Mr Justice Hedley told an emergency meeting at the Law Society that the new policy – announced by justice secretary Jack Straw late last ...
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Database survey warns of legal risks
People who take the government to the European Court of Human Rights for mishandling personal data should not have to risk paying the state’s costs if they lose, a landmark survey of government IT programmes said this week. Database State, published by the Joseph Rowntree ...
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Journalists in family courts
At a rough guess, of the 150-odd people who packed out Chancery Lane’s reading room last night to discuss the Ministry of Justice’s plans to admit journalists into family courts, 149 think it a bad idea. And the one who is in principle in favour (me) has strong reservations about ...
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Show us the proof government can handle our data legally
A study commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform trust has lobbed a legal hand grenade into the government’s stated ambition to look after us better with the help of bigger and more joined up computer databases. According to the report, the Database State, nearly a quarter of the government’s biggest ...
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Free legal web project seeks funding
A scheme to create a comprehensive online guide to English law is looking for £50,000 to fund its first phase. The Free Legal Web, the brainchild of legal publishing consultant Nick Holmes, has already won a government-sponsored prize for innovative uses of official information.
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Lawyers targeted as ID card users
Lawyers may be among the first customers of equipment to read UK identity cards, the minister in charge of the scheme said last week. Meg Hillier, undersecretary of state at the Home Office, told a conference on the business uses of ID cards that one ...
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ADR encouraged in planning process
Replacing planning appeals with alternative dispute resolution (ADR) could help save businesses and councils £300m a year, the government claimed this week. The proposals, published by the Communities and Local Government department, call for a ‘more proportionate’ planning system, removing nearly 40% of minor non-residential developments ...
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Met safety deposit box raid slammed
A solicitor representing owners of safety deposit boxes raided by police has spoken out against what he says is excessive use of powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA). Lawrence Kelly, of London solicitors Lawrence Stephens, claimed the authorities are using warrants to trawl ...
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Will writers attack comparison site
Will writers have reacted with alarm to plans by a price-comparison website to enter the legal services market. The Society of Will Writers this week warned that an online match-making service offered by the Paaleads.com venture could be ‘devastating to the professionalism’ of the industry. In ...
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Crisis set to spur consolidation
The collapse of Lehman Brothers amid turmoil on Wall Street will provide rich pickings for top firms but spell tough times for the rest, analysts have warned.
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Poland: rule of law concerns
Continuing concerns about the Polish government’s interference in the rule of law have emerged in a new study by the International Bar Association. In a follow-up to its 2007 report Justice under Siege, the association commended efforts by the new government since last year’s election, ...
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'Offer of amends' could lead to fewer libel cases at trial
The settlement of a high-profile libel case between supermarket giant Tesco and The Guardian newspaper will encourage the use of ‘offers of amends’ as an alternative to trials, libel lawyers said this week. Tesco Stores Ltd had sued Guardian News & Media Ltd ...
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Lawyers to advise professions group
An official body set up to advise the chancellor of the exchequer on future challenges facing the professional services sector is looking for input from lawyers. Michael Snyder, chairman of the professional services global competitiveness group, said last week that he would ‘welcome ideas from any of the legal professions’ ...
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Firm ditches mental health law over rates
A London firm specialising in mental health law is to slash its caseload in protest at the ‘punitive’ rates paid under the government’s fixed-fees scheme. Kaim Todner said this week it had given notice to the Legal Services Commission on 1 September that it would ...
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Fujitsu starts £700m claim against NHS
Formal moves have begun in the largest single claim for compensation ever made against the NHS, a computer contractor revealed last week. Fujitsu Services said it had issued a procedure initiation notice to the IT agency NHS Connecting for Health following the termination of a ...
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Cartel case approaches
An innovative model for funding ‘risk-free’ group actions against business cartels could have its first court blooding this autumn, the scheme’s originators said this week. ‘Cartel Key’, launched by collective claimant specialist Cohen Milstein Hausfeld Toll and insurers FirstAssist Legal Protection, will remove a deterrent ...
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Legal aid recovery threat
A six-figure claim lodged against a solicitor seven years after he gave up practice has raised the spectre of the Legal Services Commission (LSC) aggressively recouping historic legal aid funding, despite a partial amnesty agreed earlier this year. The commission has launched a High Court ...