Law Weblog

The House of Lords will not be changing for a while

Friday 16 March 2007 at 7:48 pm | In News | Post Comment

Wednesday’s vote to have a fully elected House of Lords will not lead to any immediate change. The Lords themselves voted differently and the whole thing appears to be a tactical exercise of no significance, even though many newspapers called it ‘historic’
The House of Commons voted 337-224, endorsing a 100 per cent elected Lords. The vote, however, is advisory in nature and does not pave the way for an enactment. But, leader of the house Jack Straw said the vote indeed means something will happen.

The selection of judges is a fiasco…

Sunday 4 March 2007 at 11:36 am | In News | 2 Comments

In its first year, the new judicial selection process appears to be running into trouble, and the big question is have “secret soundings” found a back door?

In January 2007 the selection of 75 circuit judges had to be re-run because more than 200 candidates who were wrongly rejected. Senior judges, including the Lord Chief Justice made representations concerning applicants that the Judicial Appointments Commission had passed over. Extra interviews are needed to correct the “error”, which has been blamed on the initial sifting panels that simply looked at application forms and took no account of judicial references.

Some are suggesting that this has created an appearance that senior judges have leant on the Commission to make sure candidates they thought should have been selected are selected.

On top of that, this week it has been revealed that 21 judges of the Immigration Appeals Tribunal have been reappointed after their 5 year contracts were not renewed. They had started legal action for Judicial Review but got their jobs back before the case came to court.

Further concerns have been voiced because some appointees have been made from the Crown Prosecution Service, which as part of the executive should be kept separate from the judiciary.

Top judge charged

Saturday 3 March 2007 at 9:59 am | In News | Post Comment

The Court of Appeal judge Lord Justice Richards has been charged with two offences of exposure (we reported his arrest in January). He is due to appear in court next week.

This charge is only ‘medium’ on the seriousness indicator but is nevertheless of constitutional significance. Lord Richards is only 56 years old and so nowhere near retirement age. If convicted he might be able to resign (although it is not clear if a Court of Appeal judge can resign), if not it will take a bicameral motion from the Houses of Parliament to remove him from his job. Senior judges are difficult to remove because of the need for them to be independent and to be able to judge without fear. He is not sitting during this enquiry.

The offence is found in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 it is gender neutral (covering exposure of male or female genitalia to a male or female witness, the Act says ‘He’ but in Law ‘He’ includes ‘She’) and carries a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment.

Between 1824 and 2003 it was an offence that could only be committed by a man to a woman. Indecent exposure has a relatively high conviction rate.

Lord Richards is not actually a “Lord”, he is a “Sir” his title as a Court of Appeal judge is Lord Justice of Appeal, he is addressed as “My Lord”. The Law Lords are the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary who sit in the House of Lords. To confuse matters further other judges can sit in the Court of Appeal but are not “Lord Justices of Appeal”, they include: High Court judges, some Crown Court judges (both courts are parts of the Supreme Court of Judicature) all present or former Lord Chancellors (but in practice they don’t) and former Lord Justice of Appeal, provided they are not too old.

Guardian article here.

Nothing to do with AS and A level law, well not a lot

Friday 2 March 2007 at 12:28 am | In News | Post Comment

We could not resist this new page on the Prime Minister’s website, a tour of number 10 Downing Street. Have you

ever wondered what is behind that black door with the wonky “10” (it is removed annually for repainting and put back wonky each year)?
Welcome to the 10 Downing Street tour – your chance to take a look behind the most famous front door in the world.

Mental Health Bill stalls yet again in the Lords

Thursday 22 February 2007 at 9:40 pm | In News | Post Comment Plans to lock up more mental patients are in turmoil after a Government bill was mauled in the House of Lords this week.

A murder is committed every week by mental patients released into the community, so for 8 years there has been a campaign to reform the law relating to mental health.

The current law does not permit the detention of those with severe personality disorders unless they have previously committed a crime. A bill to change mental health law was roundly defeated as peers feared the proposed law would have allowed the detention of those who drink too heavily, take drugs, or have sexual identity or orientation problems � so long as they are thought to represent a risk to the public.

The Lords also proposed an amendment to the Bill that would have meant no one could be locked away, whatever their risk to the public, unless there was a substantial chance that treatment would alleviate or prevent deterioration in their condition.

Criticism of the law became focused following the conviction in 1998 of Michael Stone for the murders of Lin and Megan Russell. Stone killed shortly after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital.

Drug rape myth. Binge drinking is to blame

Saturday 17 February 2007 at 5:00 pm | In News | Post Comment

Women who claim to be victims of ‘date-rape’ drugs such as Rohypnol have in fact been rendered helpless by

binge-drinking, says a study at the Wrexham Maelor Hospital.

This follows a comment last month by Julie Bentley, chief executive of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust who said “As far as I am aware, there has never been a case of Rohypnol in this country found.”

Newspaper report here.

Which areas of law need to be reformed?

Saturday 10 February 2007 at 5:42 pm | In News | Post Comment

The Law Commission has opened a Forum to invite contributors to post suggestions about areas of law that need reforming. It has been going less than a week and I suspect the contributions are not what the commissioners expected.

Law Commission forum is here.

Full veil not to be worn in court

Saturday 10 February 2007 at 5:12 pm | In News | Post Comment

New guidelines make it clear that the preference is for full veils (niqab) not to be worn in court.
In each case, the final decision is left to judges and magistrates who can permit a veil if it does not jeopardise the “interests of justice”, so veils are not banned outright.

The Judicial Studies Board guidance applies to everyone participating in court proceedings including the judge. A witness not being able to hear properly would be a reasonable objection that would lead to the judge to ask for a veil not to be worn.

The guidance became necessary when Shabnam Mughal dressed completely in black with the full-face veil leaving only her eyes visible attempted to present a case but the judge stopped her because he could not hear her “as well as I would like”.  

The guidance has the backing of the Lord Chief Justice. 

Corporate manslaughter bill defeated, again

Thursday 8 February 2007 at 9:35 am | In News | Post Comment

Major figures including Lady Thatcher, Lord Howe and the former lord chancellors Lord Mackay and Lord Irvine turned up in the House of Lords this week to vote against the government’s corporate manslaughter bill. The defeat centred on including deaths in police and in prisons, which the Home Secretary John Reid had excluded from the bill. It looks increasing likely that the passage of the bill has halted and yet again, it will fail to make it to the statute book.

New legislation to protect emergecy workers…

Saturday 3 February 2007 at 5:10 pm | In News | Post Comment

The Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2006 contains two new offences.
1. To obstruct or hinder certain emergency workers who are responding to emergency circumstances.
2. To hinder or obstruct those who are assisting emergency workers responding to emergency circumstances.

This will cover obstructing those who, for example, are fetching equipment or directing traffic during an incident to assist the emergency workers. Emergency workers are defined as firefighters, ambulance workers and those transporting blood, organs or equipment on behalf of the NHS, coastguards and lifeboat crews. The police already have their own obstruction offence as do prison officers.

These offences protect personnel who respond to ‘blue-light’ situations, against such activity as parking where an emergency vehicle cannot get by and refusing to move, or damaging an emergency vehicle or equipment, and giving false information at the scene of an emergency, which would delay or mislead emergency workers. But it would not cover deliberate hoax calls, which are dealt with in other legislation.