PLUS: Lags cook up more than porridge
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The Times
Thursday March 28 2019
The Brief
Jonathan Ames
By Jonathan Ames
Good morning.

Here’s a rare one: the body that prosecutes solicitors in England and Wales is at loggerheads with the tribunal that hears the cases over allegations that a senior lawyer misled judges. The prosecutors have said the claims have no merit, but the tribunal says they should take another look.

Elsewhere, the High Court has ruled that the former first minister of Wales acted unlawfully in a suicide inquiry; a court battle rages over a disabled child’s rights in a case which involves Princess Diana’s god daughter; a blogger is bringing a defamation claim against Labour’s former leader in Scotland; and campaigners are calling for California to end the death penalty after the new governor got half-way there.

Scroll down to our Churn column for the latest QC move involving Serle Court chambers, and to our Blue Bag diary for details on lags cooking up more than porridge.

All that and more in this morning’s must-read of all things legal, including news, comment and gossip.

Catherine Baksi, a freelance legal affairs journalist, contributed to today’s bulletin
Today
TRIBUNAL CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION INTO CLAIM LAW CHIEF MISLED JUDGES
Judge rules migrant detainees can be paid £1 an hour
News analysis: Hollywood beats Silicon Valley in copyright scrap
Comment: The law on prenups is in desperate need of reform
In this morning’s Times Law
Tweet us @TimesLaw with your views.
 
Story of the Day
Tribunal calls for investigation into claim law chief misled judges
The solicitor regulator is at loggerheads with a disciplinary tribunal over how to handle claims that a senior figure at the Law Society may have misled two judges.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has rejected a request by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT), the independent court that reprimands and strikes off lawyers in England and Wales, that it investigate claims of dishonest conduct made against David Greene, deputy vice president of the Law Society.
Read the full story >
Comment
The law on prenups is in desperate need of reform
Giving couples greater certainty over their finances in the event of divorce will encourage more to marry, writes Deborah Jeff

Prenuptial agreements are not normally “slam dunks” when couples separate and fight over money, a High Court judge recently told divorce lawyers. And he was right.
Read the full story >
 
News round-up
No need for EU elections even if Brexit delayed, say QCs
Britain would not be forced to participate in the European elections this spring even if there is a long delay in the Brexit deal, senior lawyers have claimed.

In an article published in The Times, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, QC, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, says that “fresh thinking” around the issue will “stop both sides from boxing themselves in”.
Read the full story >
Judge rules migrant detainees can be paid £1 an hour
Five former immigration detainees will take their challenge over “slave labour wages” to the Court of Appeal after a judge ruled yesterday that it was lawful for them to be paid £1 an hour.

Mr Justice Murray dismissed a challenge brought by the law firm Duncan Lewis over the home secretary’s decision to pay immigration detainees £1 an hour for work carried out while in detention, less than one seventh of the legal minimum wage.
Read the full story >
First minister of Wales acted unlawfully over suicide inquiry
Carwyn Jones acted unlawfully when launching an independent inquiry into the death of the Welsh Assembly member Carl Sargeant, a judge ruled yesterday.

The former first minister of Wales set up an inquiry into the handling of the case of Mr Sargeant, a former minister who killed himself in 2017 after he was suspended over allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour.
Read the full story >
Mother in court battle over care of disabled daughter
A close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales, is fighting a legal battle to give parents rights over the care and welfare of their disabled children once they reach adulthood.

Rosa Monckton, whose daughter Domenica, 23, has Down’s syndrome, is one of a group of parents who want to change how the law on mental capacity is applied to make it easier for parents to continue to act on their children’s behalf once they reach 16.
Read the full story >
Blogger’s tweet was homophobic, former Scottish Labour leader insists
A pro-independence blogger who is suing the former Scottish Labour leader for defamation is not interested in resolving the dispute through a retraction but with money, a court has been told.

Kezia Dugdale, 37, claimed that a 2017 tweet by Stuart Campbell, who runs the Wings Over Scotland blog and Twitter account, “considers gay people to be lesser” because it suggested they could not or do not have children. She that said she found the suggestion to be factually incorrect and offensive.
Read the full story >
Campaigners call for California to end death penalty
International human rights lawyers have called on the governor of California end the death penalty after he issued a partial moratorium on executions.

Gavin Newsom, who took office at the beginning of the year, also ordered a temporary reprieve for all 737 inmates on death row in the state, describing the death penalty as “inconsistent with our bedrock values”.
Read the full story >
In Brief
  • British millionaire who won French legal battle to destroy neighbour's chateau speaks out – Daily Mail
  • Legal aid review a missed opportunity, says former minister –Law Gazette
  • If you want to make partner at a US firm, train at Slaughter and May – The Lawyer
Also in today’s Times Law
News analysis
Hollywood beats Silicon Valley in copyright scrap
The EU’s controversial plan to make tech firms responsible for content shared on their platforms has caused legal and commercial uncertainty, writes Catherine Baksi
Read the full story >
Quote mark
Quote of the day
“In 2017, in an era of ‘twerking’ (dancing while squatting and shaking one’s bottom provocatively) and grinding, simulated sex and easy access to pornography, the thought of a pinch on the bottom is almost a reference to a more genteel time.”
Michael Ridley, a magistrate in Western Australia, in a ruling on “whether pinching a woman's buttocks to provoke a 'humorous' reaction offends against contemporary community standards of decency and propriety."
Read the full story >
Comment
Clamping down on McKenzie friends would be disastrous for the poor
Regulating unqualified legal aides would hinder vital services such as Citizens Advice and legal centres, writes Crispin Passmore

The case of Paul Wright has prompted lawyers to call for McKenzie friends to be regulated, perhaps with a ban on charging. The calls are well intentioned, predictable and wrong.

See also: Unqualified, unregulated legal advisers must be stopped
Read the full story >
Blue Bag
Lags cook up more than porridge
Ministry of Justice officials rarely have much to shout about on social media as they are usually being harangued over plummeting legal aid rates and crumbling courts.

Yesterday, however, the mandarins were able to rejoice in congratulating a group of lags at Pentonville prison for getting on to the list of finalists for the BBC food awards.

Liberty Kitchen is a social enterprise that teaches inmates how to knock up some decent nosh in the hope that they will be able to bag culinary roles on release.

The MoJ took to Twitter to flag up that the outfit is in the running in the category “best street food”. It also pointed to the government’s “unlock opportunity” programme, which works with prisons to provide training and employment to ex-offenders.

The Beeb’s Food Programme tweeted that Liberty Kitchen was up against two others for the street-food title: The Cod’s Scallops, a purveyor of traditional fish and chips, and Homebaked, a community-owned bakery located opposite Liverpool FC’s stadium, Anfield.
The Churn
Zoe O’Sullivan, QC, joins Serle Court
The commercial litigator Zoe O’Sullivan, QC, is to move from One Essex Court to Serle Court in Lincoln’s Inn, the chambers announced yesterday.

Ms O’Sullivan, who was called to the bar in 1993 and took silk in 2015, specialises in disputes including civil fraud, the banking and energy sectors, and company law. She is noted for her expertise in software development disputes, and was leading counsel for Atos IT Services in its case against Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, a significant dispute over the digitisation of NHS patient records.

The move boosts Serle Court’s commercial team after the arrival of Rupert Reed, QC, from Wilberforce in April 2017.
 
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