In the week that saw comedian Stephen Fry question the role of social media in the wake of the Paul Chambers Twitter joke trial, in which Chambers had joked about blowing up an airport, the highest judicial court in Britain registered a Twitter account. @UKSupremeCourt would be maintained by the court's communications team, with the promise of 2-3 tweets each week on cases and corporate announcements. The Supreme Court’s official Twitter policy states that while welcoming communication from followers, the court would not respond to individual messages. Sensing an air of modernisation, three of the UK's biggest news providers have written to the Prime Minister urging legislation to overturn the ban on cameras in courtrooms to be included in this year's Queen's Speech. One would assume that producers of reality television are already pondering on titles such as ‘The only court is in Europe’.
The generational
separation in social media is a worrying trend particularly among senior
partners in law firms. A sense of fear persists over improper
use and the potential impact upon cases. Yet, if carefully harnessed, social
media presence can play a potent
role in enhancing professional reputation and improve corporate identity. Last
week’s Sunday Law Review had mentioned the impending racism trial of
footballer John Terry, this week the Attorney General had to carefully consider
the Twitter
outburst of another footballer, Joey Barton. Barton made his views on the
Terry case in a series of robust tweets. The fact that the trial would be held
at a magistrates court, whose justices and district judges are regarded as
harder to influence than a jury, might have saved him an appearance in the dock
himself. In the other prominent trial involving a football personality, Harry
Redknapp walked out of Southwark crown court a free man, having been found
innocent of two counts of tax evasion. HM Revenues and customs have
denied initial rumours that the investigations had cost close to £8 million,
putting the figure close to £1.3 million.
Barristers’
Working Lives, the first of a series of biennial surveys by the Bar Council
and Bar Standards Board has revealed that more than half of barristers under
the age of 30 are women. The Bar Council claimed that the results demonstrate a
profession more diverse now than ever. Two-thirds of self-employed barristers
and half of the employed Bar would also consider working in an alternative business
structure. What is even more encouraging
for the profession is that of the 3,000 barristers who took part in the
research, nearly three-quarters said they would opt for the same career again,
given the choice. One of the most
interesting articles of the week was by Julian Young, a senior partner at a
law firm. He summarised the subject of fusion between the two main legal
professions: solicitors and counsel. The bar and the solicitor advocates have
been almost
at each others' throats for almost a year. Young concluded that ‘if
solicitor advocates and barristers undertake the same work, an amalgamation of the
professions would save money and improve standards for both types of advocates.
The Legal Services Consumer
Panel compared various comparison and have declared that such websites could
help to improve access to legal advice and stimulate greater competition on price
and quality grounds, however, the sites should also commit to a set of
voluntary standards to ensure legal service consumers are protected. The panel
surveyed 16 comparison websites looking to make a will and to arrange
conveyancing, and warned that the consumer might make poor choices if there is
insufficient information or over-reliance on price. The report stated that regulators
can help by ensuring access to professional registers, giving information
such as lawyers’ contact details and areas of speciality. What appears to be
more worrying for the profession is that law
firms have been ignoring leads that came through such comparison websites
and overwhelmingly failing to follow up referrals for basic legal work.
Justice Secretary Ken
Clarke has raised the small claims limit in county court. The limit is to
be doubled to £10,000 as part of measures to speed up civil litigation. The
limit on small claims may also be raised further to £15,000 subject to
evaluation. Clarke plans to divert
up to 80,000 more cases to a small claims mediation process that can be
carried out over the telephone. A single
county court system would be introduced and all claims will be handled
electronically at centralised business centres, then allocated across neighbouring
courts according to demand. This would leave the High Court to deal only with
complex cases. The level below which non-personal injury claims cannot be heard
in the High Court will be raised from £25,000 to £100,000. Equity cases will
only be taken to the High Court where the property is valued at £350,000. The web-based
portal scheme is to be extended and would now apply to employer and public liability
personal injury cases, and road traffic accident cases worth up to £25,000. The
plans have attracted criticism
from claimant and defendant lawyers as well as costs specialists, but should
be welcomed by the insurance industry.
A further
compromise has been promised by Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly on legal
aid for children in medical negligence cases and the definition of domestic
violence. While ruling out any concessions on the bill’s drastic cuts, the
minister has told the Westminster
Legal Policy Forum that there was no question of allowing recoverability of
success fees in medical negligence cases.
Abu Qatada’s deportation
case has generated many column inches and its implication is far reaching.
Qatada’s lawyer had argued that he should be freed from jail because he has
been held for too long. Home Office lawyers oppose attempts to bail him while
he fights deportation. A Home
Office minister is to fly to Jordan in order to gain assurances that would
enable the radical cleric to stand trial in Jordan. Abu Qatada had been
described as the most senior al-Qa’ida operative in Europe. In a separate case,
nine
members of an al-Qa'ida-inspired terror group that plotted to bomb the
London Stock Exchange and build a terrorist training camp have been jailed. Three
of the extremists, who planned to raise funds for the camp in Pakistan and
recruit Britons to attend it, received indeterminate sentences for public
protection at London's Woolwich Crown Court.
Ministers have decided
against granting grandparents
guaranteed access following divorce because of fears that the move could
clog the courts with hundreds of new cases. But, in an attempt to give divorced
fathers improved access, the Government would rewrite the law to give children
a legal right to have a proper relationship with both parents. Other
related reforms include a six-month time limit for care and adoption cases
in the courts, although the Justice Ministry insisted that flexibility would
remain to ensure a time extension for complex cases where this was in the child's
interest.
An independent
parliamentary inquiry has concluded that the law to protect stalking
victims must be fundamentally reformed. Stalking is not currently a
specific offence under English law and is dealt under harassment legislation. Support
for a new law in England and Wales had been growing and the Prime Minister
had already conceded that there is a gap in the current protection for stalking
victims, while Home Office ministers Theresa May and Lynne Featherstone are
understood to be sympathetic to demands for new legislation.
In the week that Mr
Justice Ouseley issued a declaration that there was no
‘lawful’ place for prayer during formal proceedings such as a council meeting,
the former archbishop of Canterbury George
Carey criticised the move as a gradual marginalisation of the Christian
faith. A most interesting article published in ‘The
Lawyer’ questioned even the need for religious oaths in secular cases.
On the
international law front, in the US, California's ban on
same-sex marriages has been declared unconstitutional by a San Francisco
appeals court, Georgia’s highest court has concluded that a state
law restricting assisted suicides violated free speech rights, and lastly,
in Texas, a district judge declined to stop a new
sonogram law from taking effect in a ruling that criticised the Texas
Legislature, and its attempts to discourage women from seeking abortions. In
Pakistan, the Supreme
Court dismissed an appeal over contempt charges against Prime Minister
Yousaf Raza Gilani for failing to pursue corruption investigations of President
Asif Ali Zardari, escalating a tense standoff between the judiciary and the government.
In Spain, the Supreme
Court has found Judge Baltasar Garzón guilty of misapplying the country’s
wiretap law and suspended him from the courts for 11 years. Judge Garzón had
played an important role in Spain’s transition to democracy and had been a
powerful champion of international human rights law.
My recommended
articles for this week are firstly, a New York Times editorial on ‘Politics
and the Supreme Court’ focusing on how the court underscored its power to shape
American life by taking on major cases about the health care reform law,
Arizona’s anti-immigrant law and the Voting Rights Act in an election year. The
second article is from an Indian publication that comments on the potentially lucrative
Indian legal field, ‘Foreign
Law Firms Entering the Indian Market - More Pros Than Cons’.
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.
© TTR
