On Monday the Justice and Security bill comes to the Commons at Report stage, trailing unprecedented clouds of opposition from the length and breadth of the legal profession.

The bill extends the secret hearings, known as closed material procedures (CMPs), into the main civil courts in England and Wales. It would restrict access to some sensitive intelligence to the trial judge. Defendants or claimants will not be allowed to be present, to know, or to challenge the case against them, and must be represented by a security-cleared special advocate rather than by their own lawyer. Read the full story

Government proposals to expand secret courts suffered a series of hefty defeats in the House of Lords last Wednesday, significantly narrowing the scope of the justice and security bill. This can have come as no surprise to the government. The opposition of human rights groups and many prominent lawyers, and parliament’s joint committee on human rights (JCHR), to secret trials and withholding evidence has been mounting. Read the full story

Barristers are renewing their efforts to capture the territory that has traditionally been the preserve of solicitors. To this end two initiatives have been launched.

The public access scheme was first established in 2004 and allows a barrister to be instructed directly by a lay client without the need for a solicitor. In order to take on public access work a barrister must have more than three years’ practising experience, must be properly trained and must have Read the full story