Features

Having witnessed the assessment process for the CPS Advocacy Panels, Ian Wade QC reveals what he saw and asks, “Did the CPS make the grade?”  

As the Criminal Bar faces unending tribulation, here came yet more you didn’t want – Crown Prosecution Service grading.  Following the 2009 HMCPSi report, from which neither “in-house” nor external advocates emerged with a clean bill of health, the Director of Public Prosecutions declared a commitment to improved advocacy. The inspectorate recommended a unified system of grading for all prosecution advocates, so a new assessment regime became inevitable. For many self employed advocates the brave new world of competency based and evidence tested rigour has not hitherto touched their lives, and sadly this was a block waiting to be stumbled over. Many highly competent, well regarded advocates did not get the Level they applied for, and may be perplexed at the outcome. Too often they had only themselves to blame. Simply asserting, “I am a great barrister” no longer cuts the mustard. 

Stephen Akinsanya explains how some lateral thinking - and an ipad2 - saved the day, time and money in a criminal court . 

It was the moment that every defence counsel dreads; a returned trial on a Friday and the discovery, as you read the brief, that a key defence witness was a Lance Corporal serving with the Royal Lancashire Regiment who had been flown to Cyprus prior to taking up duties in Afghanistan. 

When will immunity end for the human right violators? Sumon Akter investigates the situation in Nepal.  

The internal conflict in Nepal saw many Nepalese fall victim to the cruelty of those who are there to protect their rights and interests, as well as those claiming to fight for their rights. In 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M) declared a “people’s war” against the “ruling classes”, which included the monarchy and the political parties. During this decade-long war the Maoist and the security forces committed acts of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other human rights abuses. 

The Statute Law Society aims to educate us all about the legislative process. Michael Jennings explains

The Statute Law Society (‘SLS’) is a charitable body which since 1968 has been fulfilling its aims of educating members of the legal profession and the public about the legislative process and encouraging improvements in statute law. They have done this through lectures from noted experts and by developing educational projects. 

Job title - Silk, Old Square Chambers

Old Square Chambers specialises in employment and personal injury law. It is also known for its expertise in clinical negligence, health & safety, environmental, professional discipline, product liability and public inquiries. It has 11 QCs and over 50 other members based in London or Bristol 

Much has been said about the legal aid cuts but another critical issue is the eternal rejection of claims by the Legal Services Commission and the crippling financial consequences for barristers waiting for payment. Vanora Bennett investigates. 

Legal aid defence barristers, already struggling to adjust to massive cuts in public funding, are being dealt a double blow by a second, more insidious problem – the worsening difficulty of getting any pay at all from the Legal Services Commission (or the LSC). 

Iain Morley QC looks at the Special Tribunal and how it is helping end political assassination in Lebanon.  

On 14 February 2005, at 12.55hrs, in downtown Beirut, the largest-ever bomb in peacetime was detonated as the motorcade of Rafiq Bahaa El Din Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, passed at speed. It killed Hariri, eight members of his convoy, 13 members of the public, and injured 231 others. The explosion was so large it created a 10m crater and an atomic-style mushroom plume. 

Mr Justice Geoffrey Vos looks at the role of the judiciary in the success of the UK Plc

I want to address a subject that I feel very strongly about. It is the question of what can be done to promote the aspects of British business and professional life that are thriving and, in short, often the envy of other countries. We in the UK are very good at self-criticism. But we are not so good at understanding and defining what we are good at, what others respect us for, and making a study of how we can capitalise on some of these (very many) advantages.  

John Cammegh looks at the the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal and asks: Reconciliation - or revenge?  

The development of international criminal tribunals over the last 20 years owes much to the maxim “No Peace Without Justice”. But there can be no peace without a winner: it is the winner’s privilege both to dispense the justice and write the history in the aftermath of any conflict. 

David Pittaway QC, Chair of the Neuberger Monitoring and Implementation Working Group until the end of 2011, reports on the progress that has been made at the Bar in improving access to the profession.  

Last September I took part in a filmed interview for a BBC2 programme on social mobility within the professions. Its working title was “Who stole the best jobs?” later changed to “Who has the best jobs?” The interview lasted 90 minutes and ended up on the cutting room floor. The content was apparently not sufficiently newsworthy. The actual momentum of change did not meet the perception of privilege. The broadcast programme focused on other professions with the Bar coming out of it relatively unscathed.