The Law Business: 13th to 19th May

Welcome to the year's 19th edition of the weekly 'Law Business' column brought to you by the SundayLawReview team. 

Competent interpreters are becoming increasingly difficult to find as highlighted by a recent case where the Crown Court Judge had to adjourn the case after an interpreter had refused to turn up citing the excuse that he 'would not be paid enough'. Court services have claimed that in up to 50 percent of cases involving translation service, interpretation had to be bypassed as the individuals were either not competent or did not bother to turn up. 

The Home Secretary Theresa May has voiced her intent to further protect police officers by introducing compulsory whole life sentences for criminals who kill police officers in England and Wales. This raises the issue of should a life sentence mean life. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 permits the Justice Secretary, after consultation with the Sentencing Council, to make an order to change starting points for sentences, meaning, in this instance to change the starting point of 30 years life sentence to a whole life order. The Sentencing Council is the official body that oversees sentencing in England and Wales, issues guidelines for judges and magistrates to work to for all offences other than murder. However, a spokesman for the Sentencing Council commented that such a measure would involve changes in the law, which is a matter for parliament than the body itself.

Courts should be able to regulate individual requests for assisted suicide without reference to parliament, senior judges have been told. In the latest attempt to overturn the prohibition on doctors helping to end the lives of their patients, the court of appeal is considering three requests for legal guidelines to be relaxed. The cases concern a plea from widow of Tony Nicklinson and two others.

The purpose of this column is to take a serious look at what happened in the business of law within UK as reported by online legal publications throughout last week.


TheLawMap interview with Lawyer Nqobani Nyathi from The Legal Resources Foundation in Zimbabwe about the role of the lawyer in Africa in general as well as an insight into the legal process in Zimbabwe.


The most interesting articles on developments, compliance, business of law within UK or as well as international developments of interest to UK law firms and legal practioners: 
 

Interesting articles on the study of law, legal training, pupillage, legal academia & law students: 



Articles of the week:

The UK and international articles of the week are pieces selected by @TheLawMap tweeting team based on recommendations from friends and followers of LawNewsIndex.com daily law news blog.


  • Identity, family, marriage: our core conservative values have been betrayed. Tory leaders have forgotten what Edmund Burke understood: true conservatives are driven by more than economics | Roger Scruton - Comment is Free, The Guardian
  • The UK’s Legal Response to the London Bombings of 7/7 | Clare Feikert-Ahalt - In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress  
  • How Should the Law Think About Robots? | Neil M Richards & William Smart, Washington University in St Louis - Social Science Research Network
  • The profound problem of male sexual violence | Various - The Guardian Letters
  • Valuable as Art, but Priceless as a Tool to Launder Money | Patricia Cohen - The New York Times 
  • Guantanamo Bay: Inside a Legal Nightmare - Book Review: 'The Terror Courts'  | John Knefel - Rolling Stone Politics   
  • Can Faith Substitute for Human Rights? Creating a new culture of Human & Women's Rights in Egypt | Yasmine Mahmoud Fakhry - PeaceXpeace.org  

Lawyers, Law Firms, Chambers & ABS in the news this week: 

Friday 17th May
Thursday 16th May
Wednesday 15th May
Tuesday 14th May
Monday 13th May

 

We would like to thank all the publications cited in this week's column. Please notify via @TheLawMap Twitter handle of any errors or omissions.

 

TheLawMap Publications at a glance: 
LawNewsIndex.com - Daily Law News Archive
SundayLawReview.com - Weekly Law Business News Blog
Law Specials - A compendium of articles and interviews on Justice & Society
Wig - Daily Newspaper Focusing on Law & Society
MetaLawIndex - Informal Blog chronicling life behind the scene at LawNewsIndex & Twitter

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