All articles by Joshua Rozenberg – Page 13
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Grayling’s JR reforms met with widespread opposition
Judicial review is a way of making sure that public officials, including ministers, keep within the law. So there must be cause for concern when we hear a minister announce reforms to judicial review that will ‘target the weak, frivolous and unmeritorious cases which congest the courts and cause delay’ ...
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EU accession to the ECHR will change Euro legal framework
For as long as I have been a legal journalist, I have tried to explain to people that there are two separate European courts run by two unrelated European bodies. The 47-member Council of Europe administers the European Convention on Human Rights and supports a court in Strasbourg that decides ...
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Maintaining public confidence is tough for the judiciary
Having good judgement is one thing that the judiciary should be good at. But deciding cases is not nearly as difficult for judges as maintaining public confidence in the judiciary. And that requires considerable sensitivity to the public mood.
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Positive discrimination in judiciary faces struggles
The appointment of three ‘top judges’ attracted predictably little press attention last week, even though Lord Justice Hughes, Lord Justice Toulson and Lord Hodge will make up a quarter of the Supreme Court. Perhaps that is a good sign; it suggests the public has no reason to doubt that the ...
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‘Press LSB’ without MPs’ approval is unattractive
The government’s attempts to reform press regulation have something of the surreal about them. A draft royal charter, full of suitably medieval language, was published by the Conservatives last week - apparently, because they did not want to put a bill before parliament. But, despite that, they published draft legislation ...
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Drone dialogue
When can states use lethal drone strikes on terrorists operating abroad? There is little consensus between government lawyers and academics on when international law will permit unmanned aerial vehicles to target individuals. And the need for a common position was given added impetus late last month when a QC announced ...
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Crown succession approach out of kilter
Governments are often accused of legislating in haste and repenting at leisure. One such example is the Succession to the Crown Bill, backed by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and to be debated in the Commons next week.
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Seat at international table at risk over human rights
It seems a long time since human rights were regarded as a noble aspiration. Since then, they have become something of a political football. Where will it be kicked next? On prisoners’ votes, the government’s goal is clearly the long grass. Remember David Cameron promising that ‘prisoners are not getting ...
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Fears LETR may lead to ‘misguided reform’
A forthcoming report on the case for reforming legal education and training may be ‘unbalanced or worse’, the UK’s senior judge said in a lecture last week. According to Lord Neuberger, ‘misguided reform’ initiated by the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) may ‘undermine the rule of law and our ...
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Blazing a trail: women and the judiciary
Who was the first woman judge in England and Wales? If you replied ‘Elizabeth Lane’, award yourself an A grade: Lane (1905-1998) became the first female county court judge in 1962, moving to the High Court three years later.
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Ignoring PACE was not ‘brave’
Is Christopher Halliwell, 48, really likely to ‘walk free’ when he has served the 25-year minimum term he was given for murdering 22-year-old Sian O’Callaghan, as one newspaper reported on Saturday? Sentencing him to life imprisonment a day earlier, Mrs Justice Cox told him: ‘If you are eventually released on ...
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No case to answer? Private prosecutions and prospects of conviction
When should you be allowed to bring a private prosecution? The very idea that a private individual may be able to initiate the state’s powers to prosecute and punish offenders may strike some people as strange. Isn’t that the job of public prosecutors, such as the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)?
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Defining the coroner’s role has been the work of centuries
In the world of sudden deaths, the law tends to move slowly. Parliament first passed legislation setting out the duties of coroners well over 700 years ago, in 1275. But the Statute of Westminster can also be seen as the last act of parliament to define the coroner’s role, in ...
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Does new justice secretary’s lack of legal experience matter?
Judging by the look of its website on Tuesday morning, the Ministry of Justice still seems to be reeling a week after the replacement of almost all its ministers. There was little more on its main news page than a staged photograph of Chris Grayling, the new justice secretary and ...
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News
Religious beliefs should be respected - when rights are not impeded
Next week, the European Court of Human Rights will hear four claims against the UK that raise perhaps the most sensitive rights of all: the freedom of thought, conscience and religion guaranteed by article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Although the freedom to hold religious views is ...
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New draft code does not go far enough
Can we afford to prosecute people any more? We have already seen the government’s proposals to introduce what it calls ‘deferred’ prosecution agreements, under which companies that commit economic crimes will be able to escape criminal charges, indefinitely, if they agree to pay penalties and comply with other conditions. Last ...
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Asking the right questions
It is the sort of thing that gives lawyers a good name. MPs spent three hours last week debating Labour’s call for an ‘independent, forensic, judge-led public inquiry’ into the culture and professional standards of the banking industry.
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The National Archives is recruiting volunteers to update the statute book
Ignorance of the law is, notoriously, no excuse. But the individual citizen has never had access to a free, up-to-date account of what the law is on any particular topic. Acts of parliament can be consulted in public libraries (if there are any left) but a printed copy is only ...
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Two High Court cases focus on the legality of assisted dying
Next week the High Court will begin hearing two cases that raise profound ethical issues. The question in each case is whether it can ever be lawful to help another person take their own life. This is a subject on which we might reasonably have expected ...
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Government must not ignore Strasbourg’s overtures on prisoner voting
How did the government get itself into such a mess over prisoners voting? After human rights judges stretched out the hand of friendship to the UK last week, David Cameron promptly bit it off, willingly giving parliament an undertaking that he would not succumb to what one MP had described ...