All News articles – Page 1316
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News
Grayling sets out plan for culling judicial reviews
The justice secretary has set out plans to cut the number of ‘weak or ill-founded’ judicial reviews, which he claims are blocking the system and wasting money. A consultation published today suggests: - Reducing the time limits for bringing planning and procurement ...
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Prisoner voting debate no excuse for leaving Euro convention
Sometimes you just have to rant. I have spent near a lifetime teaching staff ‘to do lofty’, to conduct debate only in moderate tones. Then you encounter something like politicians posturing on prisoner voting. And the dam breaks. This is not only humbug: it is dangerous humbug.
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Colombian lawyers still under threat
The Caravana international delegation of lawyers was ‘dismayed’ to learn that assassinations of Colombian judges and lawyers have increased since its last visit to the country two years ago, the Gazette can reveal.
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Clearing up judgments
With regard to your Gazette item on calls for judges to make their judgments more readable, I would suggest that judges go back to read the judgments of the late Lord Denning MR; they are models of conciseness and are also entertaining in a serious way. He used short sentences ...
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Clash of the titans
The Court of Appeal decision in Petrodel Resources Ltd and others v Prest and Others [2012] EWCA Civ 1395, [2012] All ER (D) 293 (Oct) (as Prest v Prest) marks a collision between chancery and family. Family lost. The decisions of the heroes of the Family Division of the High ...
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Judicial review changes could be harmful
by Jason Towell, a partner at Cripps Harries Hall In a recent speech to the CBI the prime minister stated that the government would be looking at ways to streamline the judicial review process.
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The case for the defence
The government has decided, no doubt in an attempt to cut payments from central funds to defendants who are not eligible for legal aid, to reduce the amount of payments from central funds to no more than the legal aid rates. All well and good if this was truly fair. ...
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Innovators not worried by negligence threat to cancer care
It has been mooted that ‘current law is a barrier to progress in curing cancer’. I disagree. Lord Saatchi feels that ‘fear of litigation for medical negligence is a deterrent to innovation in cancer treatment’.
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Breach of confidence
Media – Confidential information Abbey v Gilligan and another: Queen's Bench Division: 20 November 2012 The claimant had brought a claim for breach of confidence or, alternatively, misuse of private ...
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Family judges backing court welfare reports
Family judges follow the recommendation of court welfare reports in nine out of 10 cases, research has revealed. A study commissioned by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) shows that the reports of family court advisers were accepted in just over ...
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60 years and counting
David Duke-Cohan was admitted to the profession in October 1952, the month that Britain tested its first atomic bomb, the newly formed nation of Pakistan played its first cricket Test match and Birds Eye sold its first frozen peas. Duke-Cohan, now 84, is still practising – ...
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Hopes and fears for 2013
There are dire predictions for parts of the legal profession in 2013. The provision of social welfare law will be hit by the full force of the legal aid cuts from April. This is also the date from which the economics of civil claims are ...
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MoJ must slash £2.5bn from its budget
The Ministry of Justice will have to cut more than £2.5bn – around 28% – from its budget by the end of the current parliament, the department has revealed following last week’s autumn statement. Spending has already been reined in by £580m this financial year ...
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Justice secretary out of order
Press headlines about fat-cat lawyers minting it from legal aid are a bad sign for some solicitors and their clients – they tend to herald further assaults by the government on access to justice. The Sunday Telegraph and the Sun both ran stories at the weekend ...
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Labour takes aim at whiplash reform plan
The government’s whiplash reforms are an attack on access to justice, the legal profession and genuine victims, according to shadow justice minister Andy Slaughter. Slaughter (pictured) accused the government, which unveiled its proposals on Tuesday, of ignoring root causes of problems with personal injury claims, such ...
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Ombudsman warns of dangers from ‘conveyancing factories’
‘Conveyancing factories’ pose a potential risk for housebuyers, the chief ombudsman warns today, saying he is braced for more complaints about services. A report, ‘Losing the Plot – residential conveyancing complaints and their causes’, says that despite the fall in house sales, residential conveyancing accounted for ...
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Will post-Jackson clients need protection from lawyers?
The government is now well on its way towards introducing damages-based agreements, which will be served up to litigants from a new menu of funding options next April. It issued a draft version of its DBA regulations nearly two months ago, and after inviting comments during ...
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Unified patent regime clears parliamentary hurdle
London is to hear all European patent cases concerning medical biotechnology, hygiene and chemicals, including pharmaceuticals, following today’s vote in the European parliament in favour of setting up a new court system for a unitary EU patent. The vote signals the final stage of nearly 40 ...
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PC renewals – one-third of the roll still to apply
Almost a third of the expected applications for practising certificate renewal have yet to be started with just four working days until the deadline. Despite repeated pleas from the Solicitors Regulation Authority for early applications, 31% of last year’s PC holders had yet to even start ...
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Unmeritorious appeals ‘clogging the arteries’ of CoA
Increasing numbers of ‘unmeritorious’ appeals could have the effect of ‘clogging the arteries’ of the court of appeal, the registrar of criminal appeals has warned. In the court’s annual review published today, Master Egan QC says that with pressure on funding and as the number of ...