Features

Toby Craig looks at an eventful month inside and outside the Palace of Westminster and the lessons to be learnt  

The Rise and the Fall 

What price success? Or, as Chris Huhne might be asking himself, what Pryce success? As the door of his Wandsworth prison cell clattered behind him, Huhne began to learn a lesson which few politicians (or citizens) have to suffer about the consequences of our actions. However, the tangled web woven, a tapestry of lies unravelled before a packed Southwark Crown Court as Huhne pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and his ex-wife, Vicky Pryce, was convicted, at the end of a second trial, of the same offence. Both were sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, with very little sympathy expressed by Mr. Justice Sweeney. Moral judgments to one side, it is a sorry saga from which none of the parties emerge with much credit. With his political career in tatters, like Jonathan Aitken before him, perhaps Huhne will find a new cause to devote his time to after the humiliation of incarceration. 

Borderline Justice: The fight for refugee and migrant rights 
by Frances Webber,
Published by Pluto Press, October 2012
ISBN 0745331637 
£19.99 

Asylum and immigration law was described late last year, by one of its current leading barristers Colin Yeo, as “the hardest and most bitterly fought, most controversial, most convoluted, perhaps most poorly funded and surely most tilted legal battlegrounds between the individual and the state”. Practitioners nodding in agreement would do well to pick up Frances Webber’s lucid, compelling and often angry book. 

Formerly a barrister at Garden Court, she was part of a generation of activist lawyers who, since the 1970s, expanded the reach of public and human rights law into an area characterised by ever more restrictive decision-making and regressive politics. Whether battling the “culture of disbelief” in tribunals or arguing points of law before the House of Lords, she maintains that real advocacy means putting “the reality of clients’ lives into focus to judges inevitably insulated by their position of privilege and under political, bureaucratic and time pressure to see cases as purely intellectual exercises”. 

Rose Heilbron: The Story of England’s First Woman Queen’s Counsel and Judge 
by Hilary Heilbron
Published by Hart Publishing, October 2012.
ISBN 1849464014
£20 

The story of Rose Heilbron’s life, written by her daughter Hilary Heilbron QC, provides an inspiring account of her determination to succeed in a difficult profession. At the time that she began her career there were very few female barristers. She faced difficulties in obtaining pupillage as many members of chambers and clerks were reluctant to take on a female pupil. She began practice during the war years when many male barristers were away on active service. 

By the time they returned, however, she had become so successful that in 1949, at the age of 34, she became one of the first two women Silks. She undertook numerous high profile cases in both the criminal and civil courts. In due course she became the first woman appointed as a Recorder (of Burnley) and the second female High Court judge. 

The book highlights the difficulties that she faced and also describes the intense press coverage generated by the success of a female barrister coming to prominence over half a century ago. It is clear that this  was uncomfortable for her at times, but that she also used it to great effect in generating publicity for women’s rights. She combined this with railing against the social stigma of being a working mother. She did it not by strident feminism, but simply by getting on with the job in hand. 

Following the trial (and re-trial) of Vicky Pryce and the discussion on juries which has followed, Cheryl Thomas enters the debate and explains the world of jury research  

No one listening to the Today programme the morning after the first Vicky Pryce jury was discharged could have been more surprised than me to hear the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord MacDonald, state that it is impossible here to conduct research with juries about how they reach verdicts. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. I have been conducting just this type of research with real juries at Crown Courts in this country for a decade and am currently doing so. 

What did Lord MacDonald say?
According to Lord MacDonald: “In other jurisdictions, under controlled conditions, researchers are allowed to question jurors, to come to some conclusions about the way they are deliberating and how the process works. If you have a better understanding of that, then perhaps it’s easier to frame directions to juries that they will follow and understand.” 

He was right to say this information would be helpful. But he was wrong to claim that this kind of research cannot be done here. 

Job title: Silk, Selborne Chambers 

Selborne Chambers is a Chancery/Commercial set with particular emphasis on property, professional negligence, company and financial services, civil fraud and international work.  

Congratulations on attaining Silk this year, a fine achievement. What made you apply for it this year?
The short answer is that the feedback from my informal soundings of potential consultees was encouraging. The longer answer is that, having unsuccessfully applied several years ago, I decided to work on my practice. I only re-applied when I had attained top ranking in the guides and had written a legal textbook. 

The Rolls Building Art & Education Trust has been set up to use art works and historical items to promote awareness of the law and the business-related justice system among young people. Stephen Fash explains  

The Rolls Building is the largest specialist centre for the resolution of financial, business and property litigation in the world. It is also home to the Rolls Building Art & Education Trust (RBAET) which has been set up to use art works and historical items to promote awareness of the law and the business-related justice system among young people. 

The Art of Justice: The Judge’s Perspective 
by Ruth Herz
Published by Hart Publishing, September 2012
ISBN number 1849461279
Price: £35 

“The Art of Justice” should be given a sub title: The Secret Lives of Judges, rather than the Judges Perspective.  Ruth Herz, a former judge, and now visiting Professor at Birkbeck, is at pains to point out that judges, despite their independent and impartial appearance are only human, with their own hobbies, talents or secret passions. 

It is the not so secret passion of Judge Pierre Cavellat during his 40-year judicial career that drives this book, and appears to have inspired Herz to develop a passion for art criticism and interpretation. Part biography, part art critique, part social commentary with an added smidgeon of jurisprudence, the book explores how and why a well respected judge, a strict family man and product of his time, secretly and perhaps not so secretly took his pens and paper into court, not just to make notes but to sketch proceedings. 

Nigel Lickley QC, Leader of the Western Circuit, explains the role of the circuit within the modern Bar.  

An eminent Silk in London asked me recently at a dinner in Middle Temple “What is the value of the circuits? ” 

Intrigue, scandal and everything in between. Toby Craig examines the state of play in Westminster  

Wedded to Europe?
There are some months when churning out a thousand words about life in Westminster can prove something of a challenge. It is at times like that when reports penned by Sub-Committee F of the joint taskforce on judicial stationery suddenly seem appealing. And then, there are bursts of such frenetic and potentially historic activity that it’s hard to know where to start. Whilst a happy medium is usually preferable, this month, there is no shortage of drama. 

Christian Wisskirchen, Head of International Relations of the Bar Council, and Frederico Singarajah, a member of its International Committee, look at the growing legal services market in Brazil . 

The fact that the legal services market of Brazil is attracting increasing interest from law firms around the world should come as no surprise, given the country’s rapid economic growth in recent years as one of the emerging national economies (along with Russia, India, China and now South Africa, the so-called “BRICSs”).