Discrimination

THE Bar is ready to redouble its efforts to promote fair access to the profession, Bar Council Chairman, Desmond Browne QC said today. 

His remarks come on the eve of the publication of the final report of the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions. The Panel is chaired by the former Cabinet Minister, Rt Hon Alan Milburn MP, and was commissioned by Gordon Brown in January 2009 to review the processes governing recruitment into the professions, and to make recommendations to the Government and the professions on action to improve access for all. The full press release is available on the Bar Council website (www.barcouncil.org.uk) 

Fawcett’s Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System recently published a report identifying institutional sexism in practice. Laura Prince considers their proposals to improve court proceedings, and to deal with the under-representation of women at the Bar and in the judiciary.  

Over the last five years Fawcett’s Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System (“the Commission”) has examined the experiences of women as victims, offenders and workers in the criminal justice system (“CJS”). Their final report, Engendering Justice – from policy to practice, was published in May 2009. It concluded (p 7) that: “The experiences of women within the CJS provide countless examples of institutional sexism in practice through processes, attitudes, and behaviour which amount to discrimination which disadvantages women.” 

SENIOR representatives of the Bar Council and the Law Society attended a reception in Temple Church which marks the opening of an exhibition commemorating the suffering endured by Jewish lawyers under the Third Reich. Mounted by the German Federal Bar (BRAK), the Jewish Museum London, and Temple Church, the exhibition reveals the persecution of lawyers by the Nazi regime in the run-up to the Second World War, which led, in 1938, to a ban which prevented Jewish lawyers from practising in Germany. 

The exhibition sets out the lives and fates of some of the lawyers who suffered at the hands of the Nazi regime. Out of 19, 276 lawyers in Germany, many were Jewish or considered to be Jewish by the German Government. Of these, huge numbers became victims of the holocaust. The majority of those who managed to escape persecution sought refuge abroad; among those who fled to Britain were Otto Kahn-Freund, Michael Kerr and Gunter Treitel, all of whom were later knighted in recognition of their services to the law. 

Baroness Julia Neuberger is to chair a new Advisory Panel on Judicial Diversity, charged with the task of identifying diversity barriers and recommending ways to make the judiciary more representative of the people it serves. The panel will report back to the Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, in November 2009.

Jodie Blackstock explores the issues raised by the European Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia and argues that tangible curtailments to freedom of speech could follow 

 THE Chairman of the Bar Council, Desmond Browne QC, welcomed the first meeting of the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions, part of the Commission on social mobility chaired by former Cabinet Minister the Rt Hon Alan Milburn MP. 

The Bar continues to work hard to promote access for the able, regardless of background, and welcomes this opportunity to share best practice with other professions. Bar initiatives, which are ongoing, have included a partnership with the Social Mobility Foundation, which enables talented children from low income families to experience life at the Bar first hand. Barristers mentor children from such backgrounds and the profession is working with universities and schools to ensure that students have the necessary knowledge about the Bar on which to base career decisions. Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury chaired a working group which, in November 2007, made 57 recommendations to improve access to the Bar; these recommendations are being actively implemented to ensure that the barristers of the future are able to realise their dreams, regardless of background. 

An in-depth inquiry into the background of entrants to the Bar by Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury in 2007 produced 57 recommendations amounting to a detailed road-map for the promotion of social mobility. The Bar Council is hard at work implementing those proposals with the whole-hearted cooperation of the Inns of Court, which all student barristers join. Lord Neuberger found that, whilst the Bar has an excellent record on race and gender balance and had already taken significant steps toward greater access to the profession, social background and hence familiarity with the professions remained a significant barrier to entry, along with lack of finance. 

The Bar Council's implementation of Lord Neuberger's proposals concentrates on encouraging social mobility at every step in the journey towards a career at the Bar from school, through college and university, to pupillage in chambers and ultimately a seat in chambers. The Chairman of the Bar in 2007, Geoffrey Vos QC, actively promoted the Bar's initiatives, and became Chairman of the Trustees of the Social Mobility Foundation. 

At the end of 2008, the Council definitively adopted 5 important Framework Decisions, all long-standing proposals, and some of which
have been in the works for several years: 

• on combating racism and xenophobia;  
• on the protection of personal data processed in the framework of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters;  
• on mutual recognition in probation matters;  
• amending the definition of terrorism to include 3 new offences; and 
• on mutual recognition of judgments in criminal matters. 

Member States have 2 or 3 years, as defined in the specific FD, to comply. 

Chambers’ culture can make a huge difference to successful maternity leave, says Sarah Grainger.  

In addition to offering generous maternity policies, the best thing a chambers can do to make retention work is to lead by example. Demonstrating that women members have taken maternity leave and returned to successful practices, and creating a culture where flexible  working is not seen as a problem, goes a long way to form an environment in which taking a maternity break can. 

A major new documentary has been broadcast on BBC 2. The Barristers was an intimate portrait which details life at the Bar from aspiring barristers through to senior silks. The four-part documentary was the result of four years of collaboration between the Bar Council, the BBC and other participants in the legal system, and followed senior practitioners, as well as students, as they work their way through Bar School to a permanent position – a tenancy or employment. 

The BBC was given unprecedented access to the courts, members of the profession, the Chairman of the Bar, Circuits, Inns and law schools. The documentary showed real life at the Bar, profiling barristers working in the public interest as part of the communities they serve. The work done by the publicly-funded Bar included family barristers helping couples and children in the wake of family breakdown, and criminal barristers defending and prosecuting those accused of crime. The Bar’s work on behalf of some of the most vulnerable members of our society was clearly set out.