News

The Ministry of Justice has announced a five-point plan to assist victims of crime, including a Victims’ Law to be introduced in the next Parliament to guarantee key entitlements – paralleling the suggestion already made by Sir Keir Starmer QC for the Labour Party.  

More immediate goals to be met by March 2015 include: a nationwide Victims’ Information Service about what to expect from the criminal justice system including an online portal and a new helpline; giving vulnerable witnesses a greater opportunity to give evidence from a location not in a court building; developing ways to measure and publish victims’ satisfaction; and ensuring that criminal justice agencies publish information. By December 2014 the Government will consult on options for paying compensation to victims “up front”. 

The Bar Standards Board is launching an independent review of advocacy within youth courts in association with ILEX Professional Standards.   

The move follows the publication in June of Lord Carlile of Berriew CBE QC’s Inquiry into the Operation and Effectiveness of the Youth Court, which called upon the regulators “without delay” to require all legal practitioners representing children to be accredited to do so. 

Urgent: fees underpayment for part time judicial sittings, Pupillage: matched funding, PQBD’s criminal review, Putting a price on entities.  

The exceptional case fee funding “safety net” is not fit for purpose and fewer people have access to free legal representation than since legal aid was introduced in 1949, the Bar Council has claimed.  

A Bar Council report, LASPO: One Year On, examined the effects of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 in its first year of implementation. 

The Ministry of Justice has been fined £180,000 for repeated data security failings over confidential information on prisoners and victims of crime.  

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) served the penalty following the loss of a back-up hard drive at HMP Erlestoke prison in Wiltshire in May 2013, which contained information on 2,935 prisoners, including links to organised crime, health, drug misuse and material about victims and visitors. 

Former diplomat Sir Andrew Burns KCMG has been announced as the next Chair of the Bar Standards Board.   

He succeeds Baroness Ruth Deech QC (Hon) on 1 January 2015, whose maximum two terms of office finish at the end of this year. 

Britain is still “deeply elitist”, according to a study of the background of 4,000 law, media and political leaders in UK public life.  

Elitist Britain?, published by the Commission on Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission in August, highlighted a “dramatic over-representation” of those educated at independent schools and Oxbridge, “so stark that it could be called social engineering”. 

The consultation process adopted by the Lord Chancellor during the Government’s legal aid reforms “was so unfair as to result in illegality”, the High Court has ruled.  

The London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association and Criminal Law Solicitors Association brought the judicial review challenge to ascertain whether procedural fairness required the Lord Chancellor to disclose for comment the contents of the two independent expert reports, which had provided the basis for reducing the number of duty provider work contracts from 1,600 to 525. 

Tributes have been paid to former Attorney General Dominic Grieve QC MP on his departure from cabinet after four years as the government’s chief legal adviser.  

Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti said: “[He] was one of the finest Attorneys General of modern times. Fittingly for the country’s most senior Law Officer, he always put legal principles first and party politic second.” 

The Lords Constitution Committee has heard evidence from the former Lord Chief Justice on the Office of Lord Chancellor.  

Lord Judge, who has worked with three Lord Chancellors and two Attorneys General during his time in office, told the Inquiry Committee: “I am quite prepared to tell you that when I heard that Mr Grayling was going to be the next Lord Chancellor, I rushed off to see whether he was qualified.