Justice Matters

Is the world of legal expert witnesses becoming deserted?  Has Jones v Kaney [2011] UKSC 13, in which the Supreme Court abolished their immunity from actions for breach of duty, made matters worse? Penny Cooper examines the case…  

In the second part of his article on the attempt by Abu Hamza to avoid extradition, Paul Hynes QC considers the arguments in the European Court and their compatibility with European notions of cruel and inhuman treatment

As we saw in the first part of this article, four men, Babar Ahmad, Haroon Rashid Aswat, Syed Tahla Ahsan and Abu Hamza, exhausted their UK domestic challenges to US extradition, and had to look to Europe for a remedy. 

Gray’s Inn was the setting for a stirring debate on libel reform in January. The timing was perfect. The Coalition Government was due to publish its draft Defamation Bill and Nick Clegg, only days before the debate, set out the Government’s commitment to libel reform, saying: “Our aim is to turn English Libel laws from an international laughing stock to an international blueprint”.

Chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, the five panellists covered a wide range of issues including: access to justice; the impact of libel reform on UK tabloids; how should libel law draw a distinction between the defamation claims against a blogger with a dozen readers and the defamation claims against a newspaper with millions of readers? 

To defend the Human Rights Act 1998 it is necessary to counter the falsehoods and distortions of those who misrepresent it. Regrettably the Prime Minister himself is among those who have done so, as well as more predictable elements of the media, particularly the Daily Mail.

A recent event that has unleashed misdirected criticism against the Act is the upholding by immigration judges of an appeal against deportation by an Iraqi asylum seeker who seven years previously had killed a child while driving a car. 

Eleanor Davison examines the role of the Serious Fraud Office under the new regime 

The Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”) is currently the lead agency in the UK in prosecuting cases of overseas corruption. Under s 10 of the Bribery Act 2010 the SFO is poised to become the principal enforcer of the new regime and its declared aim in exercising its prosecutorial powers is to generate a cultural change in business so that bribery is no longer acceptable. 

The new Act: a review of the main provisions, by Robert-Jan Temmink 

The much-heralded Bribery Act 2010 (“the Act”) received the Royal Assent on 8 April 2010. Previous anti-bribery law had been a hotch-potch of common law and statutory provisions from 1889 to 1916 which together were difficult to understand, hard to apply and even harder for prosecutors to use effectively. The Act abolishes the common law offences and sweeps away the 19th and 20th Century Prevention of Corruption Acts. 

Following WikiLeaks, Shonali Routray examines the position of UK civil servant whistleblowers. Are there safe routes for whistleblowers to raise their concerns rather than having to rely on anonymous leaks, she asks 

The dramatic twists and turns in the story of WikiLeaks and the release of over 250,000 US diplomatic “cables” – secure communications between the US State Department and American embassies around the globe dating back 50 years – raise some fundamental questions about the workings of Government. 

The proposed changes to legal aid funding will inhibit access to the  Family Justice System for the most vulnerable members of society –  the very people the reforms are dedicated to protect, believes Ian Bugg 

On 15 November 2010, the Ministry of Justice (“MoJ”) published its Green Paper “Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales” and, with it, the Government has introduced possibly the most profound changes to the Family Justice System since the introduction of the Legal Aid Scheme in 1949. 

Nothing succeeds like a success fee: not even an exaggerated claim or one funded by a non-party, says Mark Hill QC 

Sometimes winning is not enough. Costs, which traditionally followed the event, can now have equal importance to the trial itself. A few recent cases indicate the pitfalls which practitioners would do well to avoid and the tactical advantages which can result from prudent manoeuvring on issues of costs. 

Counsel put the following questions to the inaugural Director of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law.  

Your career has been unusual in that you have combined being a professor of law at UCL with work as a university administrator (Dean of Law and Vice Provost of UCL), with practice at the Bar (at Blackstone Chambers) and membership of various public bodies. Which of these activities is most relevant to your work for the new Centre?