All News articles – Page 1439
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News
Ken and Co live it up
Highlighting free hospitality and schmoozing enjoyed by ministers is a cheap journalistic shot, which is why Obiter is happy to indulge. This month saw the latest quarterly list published by the Ministry of Justice of ministerial gifts, hospitality, overseas travel and meetings. Sadly, the figures go ...
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Difficult to comprehend
I have followed with interest and mounting concern the Gazette’s coverage of fears about the declining standards of interpretation in UK criminal courts, most recently ‘Interpreter mistake causes trial to collapse'.
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Court interpreter situation 'improving'
Large numbers of court hearings are still being hit by interpreter problems nearly three months after new contracting arrangements began - but the situation has improved, new figures indicate.
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MoJ: ‘up to solicitors’ to police damages
A Ministry of Justice official has said it will be up to solicitors to police a key aspect of the civil litigation reforms. Robert Wright, head of civil litigation and funding at the MoJ, admitted last week there is no way for the government to ensure ...
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PI lawyers rule out ‘deal or no deal’
Personal injury lawyers are refusing to play ‘deal or no deal games’ with the government over fixed fees for smaller cases. The government has written to all stakeholders asking them to suggest a limit for the value of claim that solicitors should be able to charge ...
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Strasbourg reform ‘watered down’
The coalition’s blueprint for the reform of Europe’s human rights court in Strasbourg achieved only limited changes after proposals to help clear the backlog of more than 150,000 cases were watered down or removed during negotiations.
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Outmoded example
I do not seek to comment on the broad issues raised by the author of the letter ‘Smelling a rat', but I do take strong issue with the facts set out in the two cases he cites in his argument. In each case he mentions that ...
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Exit wound
It seems the insurance industry can get into Downing Street no problem - but exits are a little more tricky. Nick Starling, director of the Association of British Insurers, must have been happy to have survived an hour in the presence of claimant lawyers. Indeed, ...
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Flexible working patterns
In the legal profession’s workaholic culture, achieving work/life balance has always been a struggle - and still is. The term ‘work/life balance’ has such negative connotations in private practice that some firms have banned it from their vocabulary. At Ashurst, for example, they refer to ‘work/life fit’. Speaking at the ...
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Solicitor rapped for ‘frustrating’ tribunal
The president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has backed an employment tribunal’s finding of ‘appalling’ behaviour by a solicitor in a strongly worded judgment.
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Immigration
Deportation - Exclusion of immigrant deemed to be conducive to public good RS (Uganda) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: Court of Appeal, Civil Division (Lord Justices Rix, Etherton and Patten): 1 December 2011 ...
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Immigration
Child - Asylum seeker claiming to be a child R (on the application of W) v Croydon London Borough Council and another: Queen's Bench Division, Administrative Court (London) (CMG Ockelton sitting as a deputy judge of the High ...
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Police interviewing loophole must be tackled urgently
by Robin Murray, a criminal solicitor and founding partner at Kent firm Robin Murray & Co We thought the offer of access to free and independent legal advice to suspects, prior to police questioning, was automatic under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) codes. ...
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‘Light touch’ OFR?
In her speech on 19 April announcing the delayed dates for the submission of nominations for the appointment of COLPs and COFAs, SRA executive director Samantha Barrass is reported to have said that in support of the nomination ‘a senior manager from the firm must confirm that the firm has ...
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Private prosecution pioneer opens
A firm thought to be the first private prosecution specialist in Britain opened in London last week to ‘fill a gap in the tackling of economic crime’. Edmonds Marshall McMahon, established as a legal disciplinary practice, will specialise in fraud, counterfeiting, regulatory offences, corporate crime and ...
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Why the overlap?
I note the debate about the future of the Legal Services Board. I remain intrigued and confused. I thought that the Law Society and the Solicitors Regulation Authority represented our professional and regulatory body respectively. Alas, it would seem that this is not the case, ...