Posted on 10 May 2013. Tags: closed material procedures, drug-driving, law on self-defence, Leveson press reforms, libel laws, Lord Blencathra, national crime agency, nick clegg, Queen’s speech, The Communications Data bill, The Crime and Courts bill, The Defamation Bill, The Justice and Security bill, The scrutiny committee
This week’s Queen’s speech has been described as a “mouse of a programme” but last year’s speech contained a raft of new measures to transform the justice system and keep both the legal profession and civil libertarians very interested. Twelve months on this is what has happened to them. Read the full story
Posted in Civil Law, Civil Liberties, Criminal Justice
Posted on 23 November 2012. Tags: house of lords, Justice and Security bill, law society, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, Lord Pannick, Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, Michael Todd QC, nick clegg, Sadiq Khan, secret courts
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
Posted in Criminal Justice
Posted on 16 May 2012. Tags: closed material procedures, common law system, freedom of speech, House of Lords Constitution Committee, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, libel laws, national crime agency, nick clegg, Queen’s speech, Theresa May
Weighing in at just under eight minutes, last week’s Queen’s speech has been generally regarded as lightweight. But it contained a raft of new measures to transform the justice system and keep both the legal profession and civil libertarians very interested. Read the full story
Posted in Civil Law, Law Updates
Posted on 17 April 2012. Tags: cctv, GCHQ, George Orwell, home secretary Teresa May, house of lords, nick clegg, Tim Farron
Britain leads the world in the use of CCTV. As a result, surveillance has become an inescapable part of life. Britain has a larger DNA base and more police powers and email snooping than any comparable liberal democracy.
This is the very solid base for home secretary Teresa May’s new bill which will allow GCHQ to conduct real-time surveillance of a person’s communications and their web usage. The intelligence services and police will have powers to insist that internet and phone companies hand over our data without our knowledge. Read the full story
Posted in Civil Liberties
Posted on 12 April 2012. Tags: Civil Liberties, David Davis, friendly fire, joint committee on human rights, Justice and Security Green Paper, Ken Clarke, Labour Government, Lady Kennedy QC, nick clegg, Protection of Freedoms Bill, shami chakrabarti, Tory and Liberal coalition, trial by jury
Back in the heady days of May 2010 a Tory and Liberal coalition agreement was produced at break-neck speed.
Section 10 of the agreement was about civil liberties. The preamble stated: “The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion.” The agreement specifically promised the protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury. Read the full story
Posted in Civil Liberties
Posted on 15 July 2011. Tags: BSkyB, David Cameron, News International, nick clegg, Rupert Murdoch, The Inquiries Act 2005, Vince Cable
The phone-hacking scandal started out as a story affecting the rich and the famous, and therefore of little relevance to the general public. Then came the revelations that Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked, as had the phones of the relatives of war casualties, the murdered Soham girls and 7/7casualties. Suddenly Read the full story
Posted in Civil Liberties
Posted on 18 February 2011. Tags: cctv, identity cards, Identity Documents Bill, Law Society President Linda Lee, national identity register, nick clegg, The Protection of Freedoms Bill
The Identity Documents Bill abolished identity cards and the national identity register in December 2010. It was the first instalment of the government’s promise to introduce legislation to “restore freedoms and civil liberties through the abolition of identity cards and unnecessary laws.” The Protection of Freedoms Bill, presented to Parliament last week, is the next step. Read the full story
Posted in Civil Liberties, Law Updates
Posted on 29 July 2010. Tags: coalition, criminal justice act, justice minister crispin blunt, nick clegg, press complaints commission, sexual offences act
One of the more surprising pledges in the Coalition programme for government was to extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants. Such a move would turn the clock back to 1976, when the Sexual Offences Act introduced anonymity for those accused of rape. That provision was repealed in 1988. Shortly after Read the full story
Posted in Case Law, Criminal Justice, Law Updates