05 March 2010
Students from low-income backgrounds can no longer afford to become legal aid lawyers, according to a recent report. Social mobility in the legal aid profession is increasingly being curtailed by the financial difficulties of training, and has reached critical levels. Legal aid is becoming a no-go area for ordinary people who want to become lawyers. So [...]
Posted in Legal AidComments (0)
26 February 2010
Debbie Purdey was told by the law lords that she was entitled to clarity over whether her husband would face prosecution should he help her to take her life in Switzerland. Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, quickly produced an interim policy. Yesterday he unveiled his definitive policy guidelines. This followed a consultation exercise which [...]
Posted in Case Law, Civil Liberties, Criminal JusticeComments (0)
23 February 2010
That was the question posed by the Ministry of Justice. Even though juries decide less than 1% of all criminal cases in England and Wales, defendants in these cases are charged with the most serious criminal offences and face the greatest possible loss of liberty. The fairness of jury decision-making is of fundamental importance to [...]
Posted in Case Law, Criminal Justice, OffencesComments (0)
22 February 2010
All crime legal aid providers have to sign a contract with the Legal Services Commission. The current Unified Contract (Crime) has been extended to 13 July 2010, and the new 2010 Standard Crime Contract will come into force on 14 July. The LSC has just announced the new tendering procedure, and the main points are [...]
Posted in Legal Aid, LegislationComments (0)
12 February 2010
The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 has cropped up in these blogs several times before. This grab-bag of an Act covers a wide range of subjects. Apart from coroners and inquests, it deals with murder, indecent photographs, anonymity of witnesses, live links to court, confiscation orders, legal aid, criminal memoirs, and many other matters. The latest [...]
Posted in Civil Liberties, Legislation, OffencesComments (0)
11 February 2010
Hard on the heels of the National Audit Office’s highly critical report to Parliament on the procurement of Criminal Legal Aid in England and Wales comes the Public Accounts Committee’s savaging of the Legal Services Commission, the body charged with administering the programme. The Legal Services Commission (LSC) spends £2.1 billion a year on buying civil [...]
Posted in Criminal Justice, Legal AidComments (0)
27 January 2010
Police stop and search powers under anti-terrorism legislation in the United Kingdom are too wide and not adequately safeguarded by the law against abuse. So held the European Court of Human Rights in a recent judgment. The case concerned the police power in the United Kingdom under sections 44-47 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to [...]
Posted in Case Law, Civil Liberties, Criminal JusticeComments (0)
19 January 2010
Last week Lord Justice Jackson unveiled a large scale shake-up of civil litigation costs. After a year-long review into the rocketing costs of bringing legal action in England and Wales, he has made radical proposals that include accident victims paying “success fees” to lawyers out of any compensation they are awarded. The sweeping changes mostly [...]
Posted in LegislationComments (0)
14 January 2010
This week John Twomey, for the fourth time, is on trial on charges in connection with a robbery at Heathrow airport in 2004. The particular significance of this trial, involving three other defendents at the Royal Courts of Justice, is that, for the first time in some 400 years, a trial on very serious criminal [...]
Posted in Case Law, Criminal Justice, OffencesComments (0)
04 January 2010
The right of defendants to consent or refuse a ‘virtual court’ hearing has been removed, leaving the initial decision about whether the case is suitable to proceed in this way to the police. In a virtual first hearing the defendant appears in the Magistrates’ court by a video link from the police station. The magistrates or [...]
Posted in Civil Liberties, Criminal JusticeComments (0)
© 2010 Upper Case – The Anya Legal Journal. Powered by Anya Legal Web.
Other Services from Anya Designs:
Legal Case Management Software
Crown Court Billing Software
Legal Accounting Software
Criminal Offences Handbook
sales@anyadesigns.co.uk
0845 072 6060