Features

The Judicial Appointments Commission was created under the provisions of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 to select judges for courts and tribunals in England and Wales and for some tribunals whose jurisdiction extends to Scotland. Selections are to be made solely on merit from a broad range of candidates.  

Each year around 5000 people put in an application for the wide range of court and tribunal roles available – many of them open only to lawyers and serving judges – but also for a myriad of specialist member roles. Around 500 or so of those aspiring applicants will be successful and receive an offer of appointment. The diversity of these selections is improving – over 50% were women in our most recent set of published diversity data for both legal and non-legal roles (April- September 2013). 

Gerard Rothschild offers guidance on the administering of oaths in an increasingly secular society.  

Authorisation to administer oaths is a privilege expressly conferred by a barrister’s practicing certificate which is often overlooked. How to administer oaths features neither in the BPTC syllabus nor in the Bar Council’s Handbook. In an increasingly secular society, yet one whose legislation appears still to attach special importance to the taking of oaths, it is incumbent on those of us entrusted to administer them to ensure due formality so that their significance is respected. This article seeks to redress the lack of guidance. 

The prevailing idea that the British courts are losing control to Strasbourg is to view the situation the wrong way around, argues Dean Spielmann, the President of the European Court of Human Rights.  

Hardly a day goes by without some reference in certain sectors of the British press to the European Court of Human Rights (“the Court”) in less than flattering terms. This criticism is often relayed by leading politicians. Recently some senior judges have also voiced unease about the Court. There is undeniably a problem in the way the work of the Court is currently understood and perceived in the United Kingdom. This is of particular concern to members of the Court and to me, its President, because of the outstanding contribution that the United Kingdom has made to the human rights protection system set up by the European Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”) and the leading role it has played more generally in the development of human rights standards. I am therefore grateful to Counsel for this opportunity to try to dissipate some of the misconceptions that have arisen. I will seek to address two main criticisms of the Court - firstly that it is undemocratic, and secondly that it has excessively expanded the scope of the protected rights and freedoms. 

Significant changes have occurred in the way vulnerable witnesses are treated by the courts. Eleanor Laws QC considers the recent case of R v F [2013] EWCA Crim 424.  

Helen” is a 24 year-old deaf woman who lives with her parents. She cannot speak and has a limited ability to use sign language as a result of having learning difficulties and suffering from cerebral palsy restricting the use of her right hand. She has a limited number of friends and family and spends much of her time with her parents, either at home or in the local pub. 

Tracy Ayling QC, an Inner Temple Advocacy Trainer, explains the new and necessary way of cross-examining vulnerable witnesses and the training available to advocates to help them to follow the rules.  

It is true that there are some excellent and informative CPD courses at the end of every year. It is possible to collect your points whilst trying to assimilate rafts of cases and notes, delivered to you by experts in the field. How much of it you retain may be open for debate. 

Charlotte Proudman reviews her recent legal placement in Israel and demonstrates how litigation is being used strategically to bring about change.  

Last summer I took a sabbatical from practice to work for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), specialising in strategic litigation. I was awarded an International Legal and Professional Development Grant from the Family Law Bar Association and the Bar Council. The purpose of my placement was to gain expertise in strategic litigation at an international level. 

Job title 

Barrister, 4 Pump Court 

4 Pump Court is a leading barristers’ chambers with expertise in commercial, construction, energy, professional negligence, shipping, information technology and telecommunications work. 

Battle lines are drawn  

My party political allegiances remained pretty constant until the day I found myself driving behind a car that had a sticker on its rear windscreen.  Generally, I fi nd these proclamations very annoying. Top of my hate list is “Drive Carefully! Baby on Board!” Whenever I see this particular command, it coincides with a car that is being driven badly in some way – the last one cut me up having undertaken my car at high speed on the M4 – and has no baby in the vehicle at all, unless it has been placed in the boot. However, on this day of my political metamorphosis, I found the rear sticker not only completely failed to irritate me but actually expressed a thought that had been germinating in my head for some time. It read, simply and succinctly: “Don’t Vote! It Only Encourages Them.” 

Rain, rain, go away.... Toby Craig reviews a wet, windy and eventful month for those in Westminster.  

It never rains but it pours... 

Andy Thornton explains the role played by the Mock Trial Competition in opening up the Bar as a career for so many – and the funding issues now faced.  

It is the fourth of December and the line-up of this year’s Bar National Mock Trial final has just been announced. 2,000 students in 160 schools across the UK, helped by 300 barristers and advocates and assessed by 90 judges have been reduced to 16 teams ready for the final showdown in Cardiff Crown Court on 22 March 2014. Please come and watch.