All News articles – Page 1776
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News
Kickback law to get reboot
Individuals who bribe public officials, or companies that negligently fail to prevent bribery, will be guilty of new offences if Law Commission proposals become legislation. In Reforming Bribery, published today, the commission recommends replacing a ‘morass’ of bribery laws with two general offences of giving bribes ...
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Family law
Contact orders – Fairness – Orders restricting further applications – Residence orders Re G (a child): CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Ward, Rimer): 6 November 2008 The appellant father (F) ...
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Laundering reports fall by nearly half
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) wants solicitors to make more and better reports on suspected money laundering over the next year, after reports submitted to the agency fell by more than 40%. In its second annual report, SOCA says it will encourage organisations most ...
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Employment law
Equal pay – Justification – Remuneration – Sex discrimination – Shift workers Blackburn and anor v Chief Constable of West Midlands Police: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Scott Baker, Maurice Kay, Wilson): 6 November 2008 ...
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Warning over video link for defendants
Government plans for defendants to make their first appearance before magistrates’ courts via video from the police station will lead to more people being remanded into custody, practitioners have warned. The Office for Criminal Justice Reform (OCJR) plans to test a ‘virtual court’, intended to save ...
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Day of reckoning
I congratulate Martyn Day on the success he is having in his use of conditional fee agreements (CFAs) (see [2008] Gazette, 6 November, 14), but it is important to add that the Legal Services Commission (LSC) still funds major group claims.
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Criminal law
Computers – Criminal Cases Review Commission – Indecent photographs of children – Knowledge – Detected computer images R v Christopher Rowe: CA (Crim Div) (Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, Mr Justice Swift, Mr Justice Cranston): 3 ...
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Criminal evidence
Competence – Learning difficulties – Sexual activity with children - Witness R v M: CA (Crim Div) (Lord Justice Richards, Mr Justice Foskett, Mr Justice Jacob): 4 November 2008 The ...
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Crunch skips court
The credit crunch has yet to create a wave of commercial litigation, according to latest Ministry of Justice statistics. Although the number of commercial cases launched in the High Court hit 64,046 in 2007 – the highest for seven years – this represents only a 1.6% ...
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Last orders for Council
You know what it’s like when you’ve had the decorators in. The Law Society is understandably a little proud of its newly refurbished high-tech Council Chamber, where each seat has ‘access to power and data’ and will shortly have electronic voting. A little fastidious, too. Attendees ...
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Council members vote 'no' to a reduction in seats
Plans to reduce the size of the Law Society Council look to have been killed off following a members’ vote last week. Law Society chief executive Des Hudson predicted it will now be ‘some time’ before any future decision is made on the Council’s size ...
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It couldn't happen here
There’s been much talk over the past couple of weeks about why the UK has yet to produce a political figure comparable to Barack Obama (pictured). Now Hackney MP Diane Abbott has come up with a novel theory. Chairing a House of Commons meeting on the Ouseley review of regulatory ...
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Civil costs rates 'next month'
New guideline hourly rates for civil costs may be published by Christmas, the chairman of the committee charged with recommending the rates announced last week. In a rare public address, Professor Stephen Nickell admitted that producing the rates has not been an easy process, with the ...
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Canny Scotland
Obiter confesses to enjoying a glass or three of the hard stuff at this time of year, so he’s not going to get sanctimonious over revelations that the Attorney General’s office has spent a whopping £102.35 of taxpayers’ money on alcoholic drinks so ...
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Random selection call
Judicial panels hearing cases before the new UK Supreme Court should be picked at random rather than by the opaque procedure used by the House of Lords, a leading silk suggested this week. Lord David Pannick QC criticised the current system under which even Law Lords themselves do not know ...
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Late surge boosts PC numbers
A late surge in applications for practising certificates over recent days has reversed an apparently startling decline in numbers. Latest figures from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) show 97,291 submissions as of 16 November – 477 more than at the same time last year. The previous ...
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Of bills and balance sheets
Some solicitors enter the profession because it is a vocation, others because lawyering offers a comfortable living and a measure of status. We would venture that only a small minority become solicitors primarily because they aspire to be business people or entrepreneurs. After all, you study accountancy if you want ...
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Baby P 'scapegoat' claim
Local government solicitors have defended colleagues at the London Borough of Haringey against press criticism of their role in the case of ‘Baby P’. Suzanne Bond, chair of Solicitors in Local Government, said that some media coverage of the case had been ‘chilling’ in ...
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Paul Dacre’s belligerent attack on Mr Justice Eady
‘Dull doesn’t sell newspapers. Boring doesn’t pay the mortgage.’ Thus did Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre begin his speech to the Society of Editors. He proceeded to give a masterclass in exactly what he meant. No nuance clouded his demonisation of the Human Rights Act or of Mr Justice Eady. ...