Features

David Barnes, former Chairman of the IBC and Chief Executive of 39 Essex Street, offers a clerk’s view of BARCO.  

Under rules rC73, rC74 and rC75 of the new Bar Handbook, formerly known as rule 407 of the old Code of Conduct, the handling of client money is strictly prohibited for any barrister practising in England and Wales. But what does this mean to practitioners and their clerks in everyday terms? Well, simply put, whilst there are some exceptions, if the client has any rights to have any funds refunded which have been unspent, then you are handling client money. Avoiding this pitfall can be cumbersome and sometimes lead to you taking adverse credit risk or, even worse, losing new business, something none of us can afford in this climate. 

Our legal system is meant to be the envy of the world. Matthew Scott talks to Nigel Lithman QC about his battle to save the criminal justice system.  

Nigel Lithman QC, this year’s chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, is fighting what he believes to be a battle for the survival of a respected criminal justice system. What is more it is a battle that is having to be conducted on at least two fronts. 

Stephen Crowne, Chief Executive of the Bar, explains the new Bar Representation Fee and the works that it funds.  

I would guess that if you were asked to identify the highlights of your year, renewing your practising certificate wouldn’t even feature on a long-list. But it is vital to protect and safeguard the infrastructure which allows the Bar to continue to practise and develop. We want to make that process as smooth and as easy as we can for you, and to explain clearly what the money is for, and the value it provides. 

Adam Sampson explains the business case for good complaint handling...Not just because the regulatory rule book tells you to.  

Common sense tells me that taking complaints seriously, and striving for reconciliation when clients are unhappy with a service, is good for reputation. We are all consumers in one way or another, so we know that when, for instance, our energy provider tries to diddle us with a bill written in hieroglyphics, we will probably tell our friends and family to steer clear of them. That is, of course, unless they attempt to put their mistake right when we raise the issue. 

Counsel’s consultant editor, David Wurtzel, pays a tribute to the former Lord Chief Justice and looks back at the contribution he has made to the Bar, the law and the country.  

It was Hugh Davies QC who summarised Lord Judge’s tenure as Lord Chief Justice as “beyond the brilliance and clarity of his judgments and progressive thinking in the vulnerable witness area, it is his appreciation of the changing culture in how trials should work and the respective roles and duties of judges/counsel. Directions to the jury on rape myths; and understanding of modern crime such as cyber and organised sexual offending against children. He is often more progressive in all this than the counsel who claim to be ‘front line’.” 

Slavery and trafficking are now the leading and most profitable international criminal enterprises, outstripping both drugs and fraud. Lewis Power QC and Ross Talbott explore the problem and the steps being taken against these crimes.  

Today’s human rights abusers commonly hide behind entrenched cultural idiosyncrasy. Barbaric acts of stoning, the death penalty and child executions are said to have been carried out under the guise of cultural essentialism. Such arguments are even used to facilitate the rule of undemocratic regimes where parliament is powerless, the rule of law non-existent and corruption rife. With globalisation, the visibility of human rights abuses has increased worldwide due to escalation in cross-border economic, social and cultural activity. It is therefore vital that each and every nation or state claiming to respect the rule of law and human rights acts immediately to combat the colossal problem of contemporary slavery. 

Joyce Plotnikoff and Richard Woolfson explain the new ground rules for counsel and the recently launched advocacy toolkits designed to help.  

Counsel will need to “up their game” when dealing with vulnerability at court, thanks to recent guidance which requires greater fl exibility and advance planning. New Criminal Procedure Rule 3.8(4)(d) requires courts to take “every reasonable step” to facilitate the participation of witnesses and defendants. This includes ground rules hearings (GRHs), at which the judge, advocates – and intermediary, if any – discuss how a vulnerable person should be questioned, or how a vulnerable defendant can be enabled to participate effectively in the trial. Decision-making at the GRH is given a high profile in the Lord Chief Justice’s Criminal Practice Direction 3E and the Judicial College’s Equal Treatment Bench Book chapter 5, both issued this autumn. While GRHs have been obligatory in intermediary trials since Part F.1 Application for a Special Measures Direction was introduced in 2010, the new guidance emphasises that a GRH should be scheduled in any case involving a vulnerable witness or defendant,  whether or not an intermediary takes part in the trial. 

Illari Aragón Noriega and Daniel Carey on the trial’s significance and the challenges faced by those seeking justice in Guatemala.  

The trial and conviction of Efrain Rios Montt, ex de facto  president of Guatemala, is unprecedented. Never before has a former head of state been tried and convicted for genocide in a domestic court. On 10 May 2013, he was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 80 years in prison. 

The 2005 and 2013 legal reporting reforms have given rise to initiatives and new images which feed into a new Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project: Judging Images: the making, management and consumption of judicial images. Leslie J Moran reflects upon this project and on Isobel Williams’s work.  

Isobel Williams is not so much a courtroom artist, commissioned to produce court pictures for an image hungry media, but an artist interpreting her courtroom  experiences in words and pictures. Her licence to draw in the Supreme Court is indicative of a new relationship between courts and visual media. 

Blogging artist Isobel Williams on her work in the highest court in the land.  

Since July 2012 I have been an occasional blogger-with-a-difference in the Supreme Court, with the court’s permission. The difference is that I illustrate my blog with drawings which I do on the spot; I rarely embellish them afterwards.