Features

Job title
Barrister, 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square

4-5 Gray’s Inn Square specialises in providing legal advice and advocacy in public, planning and commercial law. With 56 barristers, chambers handles cases at all levels of expertise and complexity for a range of clients.

Toby Craig and Charles Hale reflect on the results of May’s local and mayoral elections and the plans revealed by the second Queen’s Speech of the Coalition Government  

Trials and Jubilations

And in the blink of an eye, it was all over. It’s been a busy month for the Queen, as she put quill to parchment to grant the Royal Assent to what is now the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act. That marked the end of a long and arduous lobbying process, which sadly was always to have a disappointing outcome, but with some important victories. Having been enthralled with the Bill’s progress on these pages for some months, we have nothing further to say on the topic (for now...), but you can read an excellent and extensive summary of the passage of the Bill by Harriet Deane, who worked tirelessly on the Bill on the Bar’s behalf, later on in this issue. 

Sara Nathan spent six years on the PCCC and another six at the Judicial Appointments Commission. Here she offers her reflections on the Bar.  

Six years on the Bar Council’s PCCC (Professional Conduct Committee of the General Council of the Bar, the precursor to the Bar Standards Board) and another six at the Judicial Appointments Commission mean that I have had more contact with barristers than most lay people ever can. And that’s a stimulating experience. Now both are over, I’m asked to reflect on over a decade of working with the Bar but never being one of you. 

In a two part feature for Counsel, John Newth reviews the special tax provisions that affect practising barristers.  

The taxation of barristers comes within the definition of ‘a specialised profession’ as far as UK taxation is involved. This article sets out the distinctive statutory and practical considerations that must be born in mind when dealing with the taxation affairs of individual barristers.

End of the cash basis 

The cash basis of preparing barristers’ accounts came to an end when section 42, FA 1998 was enacted, requiring accounts to be prepared ‘on a true and fair basis’. Reference to this basis was replaced by section 101(5), FA 2002 which required accounts to be prepared ‘in accordance with generally accepted accounting practice (GAAP)’. See also the HMRC Business Income Manual at BIM 74000- BIM 74015. 

An old hand’s guide to the Machiavellian machinations of chambers  

May 8, 2012: “…and there is no new thing under the sun” Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1, Verse 9.

The impending collision of two of my cases, one overrunning and one about to start, was averted: not by my learned junior in the former case keeping his promise that I could leave after my speech since, by then, he had vanished himself, but owing to the modern habit of prosecuting authorities to leave until the last possible moment the service of evidence that it has had for ages but has only recently perceived as being both in its possession and vital to the successful prosecution of the case. Thus, the arrival of about two thousand pages of evidence recovered from defendants’ computers, served last week in the latter case, has had the effect of aborting the whole trial until next year. Despite threats by the trial judge about wasted costs orders against the prosecution, I will believe it when I see it.

At a time of universal celebrations for the bicentenary of Dickens’s birth, Victoria Kastner suggests how best to enjoy the great man’s works 

During his bicentennial year, when worldwide praise for Charles Dickens threatens to reach its saturation point, there is a simple way to rediscover his genius. Read his novels aloud. The distance between his era and ours vanishes when we speak his words. Starting with The Pickwick Papers in 1836 and ending with Our Mutual Friend in 1864, Dickens wrote fourteen complete novels in twenty-eight years. This astonishing accomplishment represents only a small percentage of the eight million words he produced in his lifetime. As journalist, essayist, correspondent, and playwright as well as novelist, Dickens was so prolific that almost no one has read his entire oeuvre. Within this torrent of exceptional prose, he reserved his finest efforts for his novels. Today the general public regards them as the sole source of his fame. Dickens created each of these fourteen works with a perception we have since largely forgotten: the majority of his readers were in fact not readers at all, but listeners. 

Lucy Perman explains the work of theatre company Clean Break. 

Clean Break uses theatre to change the lives of women offenders. We were founded 33 years ago by two women in prison at HMP Askham Grange in Yorkshire and today we have grown to become a critically acclaimed theatre company, commissioning and producing plays by some of the UK’s best female playwrights on the theme of women, crime and justice; and providing high-quality theatre-based courses, qualifications, training opportunities and specialist support which are critical for the rehabilitation of women offenders. 

Christine Kings explains the changes currently being carried out to BARMARK. 

BARMARK, the quality standard for the Bar, is about to undergo radical change. The voluntary scheme, designed to recognise best practice, was launched in July 1999 with the sole aim of improving the administration of chambers. It now needs a major overhaul to make it suitable for a highly competitive 21st century legal services market. 

Raffia Arshad considers the law, case law and guidance surrounding Oaths and Affirmations 

To an experienced courtroom advocate, a witness swearing the oath to tell the truth is the means to an end. However, sometimes the process itself can throw up complications. Can a judge compel a practising Muslim to swear on the Quran if he or she instead chooses to affirm? Some recent decisions show that both the bench and the Bar can get it wrong. 

As the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (LASPO) receives Royal Assent, Harriet Deane reflects on why making laws is never a pretty business 
“I am sorry to say that the product of the Minister’s hard work and the process followed by the Government on the Bill do not reflect well on this Government’s reputation. They have damaged access to justice, a fundamental constitutional principle.”