In the early hours of last Saturday morning as I had started to write that week’s Sunday Law Review, news came through of the terrible Costa Concordia tragedy. Captain Francesco Schettino is accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his vessel before all passengers were evacuated, and remains in a house arrest by Italian authorities. A class action suit has been brought on by a group of 70 passengers against the ship’s owner Costa Crociere. Yet the nature of contract law is so complex that the terms and conditions of the tickets in addition to any criticism of the captain may help the owner avoid liability under international agreements like the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims.
Here in UK, the Justice Secretary Ken Clarke presented the Justice and Security Green Paper to the parliament in October 2011. Clarke’s plan to extend ministerial powers to withhold evidence in civil proceedings would perhaps go some way to undermine ancient freedoms. As I had written in previous columns, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill proposes the most significant changes to the justice system since the inception of Magna Carta almost 800 years ago. Last week, former cabinet minister Lord Tebbit and one-time Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay had thrown their weight behind amendments to the bill urging the government to retain Legal Aid for children pursuing clinical negligence claims. The government made its first small concession in the House of Lords debate agreeing to table a ‘technical amendment’ to ensure all special educational needs (SEN) cases remain in scope.
The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has claimed that many detention centres were being used to care for children and that the youth justice system requires a radical overhaul. According to the CSJ report, there are some 5,000 children detained, with each place costing between £69,600 and £193,000. The report claims young offenders' institutions should not be forced to step in when council run social services have failed to help a youngster. Instead, offenders under the age of 18 should only be imprisoned for the most serious crimes, with parents and teachers taking a common sense approach and dealing with misdemeanours.
As the Nationwide Building Society started to cull its panel of conveyancers, this week, the Law Society wrote an open letter to solicitors outlining its strategy and guidance for addressing HSBC’s highly controversial decision to introduce a conveyancing panel comprising of just 43 firms. Regular readers of this column would note that HSBC’s foray into conveyancing generates much heat.
In what appears to be a very empathetic development, the Law Society is set to launch a dedicated advocacy section to build a ‘community’ of solicitor-advocates to match the level of support barristers receive from the Inns of Court. The Advocacy Section would provide mentoring, training and networking opportunities at circuit and national level. It will be open for Crown Prosecution Service solicitors, criminal, civil, family and children advocates, as well as paralegals employed by solicitors with rights of audience.
The European court of human rights has ruled that Britain's most dangerous murderers can remain behind bars for the rest of their lives. The Strasbourg judges have dismissed an appeal from three murderers, Jeremy Bamber, Douglas Vintner and Peter Moore, that their "whole-life" sentences should be struck down because they have no hope of release. Their lawyers told the human rights judges that the lack of any regular review of their progress in prison amounted to "inhuman or degrading treatment" as they had been condemned to die in prison. But the court ruling stated that in each of the three cases the High Court in London had decided that whole-life sentences were required relatively recently and following a fair and detailed consideration.
European courts have been increasingly severe in the recent years on websites facilitating the sharing of illegal pirated content. Yet, rather remarkably, a court in Cologne has made a ruling that German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom should continue to allow access to Internet betting sites, even if they are illegal in Germany. In the US, the Online Piracy Bill stalled despite having bipartisan support. The two bills, PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House of Representatives were backed by content providers like Hollywood studios and music recording companies. Wikipedia and other tech firms like Google, Facebook and Yahoo naturally oppose the bills arguing that such measures could infringe upon freedom of expression. A protest was organised by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales through a blackout of his site. I noted that only the English speaking version of the opensource encyclopaedia was affected.
The US Supreme Court has upheld a law extending copyright protection to foreign literary works even after the works had entered public domain. On Wednesday, the court ruled 6-2 that a 1994 law that brought the United States in line with global intellectual property conventions violated neither US copyright law nor freedom of speech rights guaranteed by the constitution.
Just as I was about to leave the sanctity of the keyboard news arrived of the Prime Minister David Cameron issuing a challenge to the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR must no longer be able to act as a court of appeal on cases already dealt with in Britain. Cameron's challenge is in response to a decision earlier this week when European judges declared that radical cleric Abu Qatada, wanted in Jordan on suspicion of conspiracy to carry out bombings, might not get a fair trial if sent there by the British government. Qatada, has been in jail since 2005, fighting deportation.
On the international legal front the impeachment trial of Justice Renato Corona in the Philippines seems to be meandering through accusations of technicalities. In the week that saw Kodak filing for bankruptcy protection, the New York Times published a very interesting item on ‘Blacks are about twice as likely as whites to wind up in the more onerous and costly form of consumer bankruptcy as they try to dig out from their debts’.
As ever, I thank the legal professionals, journalists, web editors and publications I have cited, and linked to for allowing me to compose this week’s Sunday Law Review. Readers are welcome to highlight any critical omissions, offer factual corrections or discuss the issues raised in my review.
May I also take this opportunity to thank everyone who had attended the #TweetingLegals on last Tuesday night at the Old Bank of England. A wonderful gathering of like minded individuals and I am already looking forward to the next occasion!
© TTR
