Last 3 months headlines – Page 1308
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News
Civil procedure
Practice - Striking out - Claimant bringing claim for damages and permanent non-disclosure injunction Giggs (previously known as CTB) v News Group Newspapers Ltd and another: Queen's Bench Division (Mr Justice Tugendhat): 2 March 2012 ...
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What do you know about the European Ombudsman?
In a pretty park in the European quarter of Brussels is situated the local base of an institution that should be better known to lawyers, since it can provide recourse to clients. The world may be filling up with ombudsmen, but the granddaddy of them all (in European terms) is ...
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Immigration
Appeal - Evidence - Use of linguistic analysis reports RB (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: Court of Appeal, Civil Division (Lords Justice Rix, Moses and Mr Justice Briggs): 13 March 2012 ...
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Pro bono: are lawyers leading the way?
Working at the National Pro Bono Centre I get to observe a large portion of the organised pro bono activities undertaken by members of the legal profession. One of the first things that struck me when I started working as a caseworker at LawWorks was the scale of the volunteer ...
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Immigration
Asylum seeker - Child - Best interests of child HK (Afghanistan) and others (by their litigation friend) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: Court of Appeal, Civil Division (Lords Justice Pill, Rimer and Elias): 16 March 2012 ...
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Don’t bank on loyalty
My firm, along with thousands of others, is no longer on the HSBC panel. As a result of the ludicrous volume of enquiries being raised by the bank’s preferred lawyers for this area in a case I am currently involved in, and because of the unrealistic and unworkable undertakings which ...
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No to HSBC
Having received the 13 pages of instructions from Countrywide Conveyancing Services in connection with a HSBC mortgage it is providing to my purchasing clients, it is obvious that this new procedure is doubling the work for conveyancing solicitors not on the HSBC panel while leaving all the liability and risk ...
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Child abduction
Removal outside jurisdiction - Return order - British mother returning from Australia to UK with child Re S (a child) (international abduction: subjective fear of risk): SC (Justices of the Supreme Court Lords Phillips (president), Mance, Kerr, Wilson, Lady ...
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Criminal law
Human rights - Suicide - Liability for complicity in another’s suicide - Claimant being paralysed Nicklinson v Ministry of Justice: QBD (Mr Justice Charles): 12 March 2012 The claimant was ...
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Recovering costs where both parties have succeeded in some of their arguments
Even though a party may succeed in obtaining a judgment in its favour, the unsuccessful party may have succeeded in defeating some of the successful party’s arguments. The questions which arise in such a scenario are: which party should be awarded its costs? If the successful party is awarded its ...
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Legal training: the best routes to becoming a lawyer
Abolishing the concept of the qualifying law degree, more common training for prospective lawyers, replacing the training contract with ‘supervised practice’ and sector-wide CPD – just some of the ‘more radical’ ideas being considered by the profession-wide Legal Education and Training Review (LETR). But just ...
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Something not right about guideline for either-way offences
Does anyone else smell a rat? A new allocation guideline for either-way offences was published earlier this month by the Sentencing Guidelines Council which comes into force on 11 June. Within the guideline it states: ‘It is important to ensure that all cases are tried at the appropriate level. In ...
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Smily, unhappy people
Being ‘disappointed’ and having people ‘fail to heed’ us is something Obiter can fairly reliably get at home. But, thanks to last week’s budget, we know we are not alone. Starting on Wednesday and on into Thursday, Obiter’s BlackBerry was fairly buzzing with the ups and downs being enjoyed by ...
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Carry on doctor
With reference to Jerry Pearlman’s letter of 8 March, the lady who first taught me German, on learning that I was a ‘rechtsanwalt’, insisted on calling me ‘Herr Doktor’ because she said that was how all lawyers are addressed in Germany and, as viewers of Inspector Montalbano will know, it ...
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Customer is wrong
I assume that if 120,000 solicitors told chief legal ombudsman Adam Sampson and the Law Society to strike out the use of the words ‘customers’ and, worse still, ‘consumers’ from usage, they will oblige? The use of the words customer and consumer is inaccurate in a professional context and ultimately ...
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A prototype Magwitch?
The philosophy behind Australia as a penal colony was very much ‘out of sight, out of mind’, writes James Morton. If the convicts did escape they were not likely to make it back to England. Probably only one escapee managed it. A petty thief at the age of 18, Charles ...
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Bank of England job - lawyers need not apply
In the next few months, David Cameron and George Osborne will be looking to recruit a new governor of the Bank of England to succeed Sir Mervyn King when he steps down in June 2013. I trust that no banking lawyer is tempted to apply ...
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Waxing lyrical
Our news team gave themselves an earworm the other day by headlining a report about the US with a line from New York, New York. The only cure was to think what songs might be appropriate for other stories on the news agenda. For example, ...
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Having a ball
Tony Roe Solicitors, a divorce and family law specialist based in Theale, Reading, is the latest recruit to Obiter’s Brighter Window campaign. The firm’s logo, a rubberband ball, can be seen bouncing across its frontage, the firm’s head, Tony Roe, tells us. ‘The firm’s windows were ...