News

Wi-fi justice, a Family court revolution and Fee-charging Friends...  

The Government’s approach to public inquiries wastes expert knowledge and makes inquiries longer and more costly, according to a House of Lords Committee.  

The Inquiries Act 2005: post-legislative scrutiny report, published in March, found the overall framework of the Act to be good but that the Government is not using the legislation enough, and is setting up inquiries with “inadequate powers”. It recommends that a specialist unit be set up within the Courts and Tribunals Service of the Ministry of Justice to assist all public inquiries and pass on best practice. 

The limits – or not – on judges in interpreting domestic law and in applying decisions from the European Court of Human Rights has been much on the mind of the judges themselves.  

Delivering the Bentham Presidential lecture on 12 March, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Dyson, stated that Europe “has become a toxic and highly political subject. I regret that judges have descended into the arena. An impression has been created that the entire judiciary is critical of the European Court of Human Rights” thanks to some lectures given by “a few senior judges” who “have not claimed to speak on behalf of their colleagues or, so far as I am aware, anyone else”. 

Criminal Bar Association members have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Ministry of Justice ‘deal’ to defer cuts to the Advocates Graduated Fee Scheme (AGFS) and to suspend further action. In a controversial agreement struck with Bar leaders at the end of March, the Government agreed to defer the AGFS changes until summer 2015 in exchange for calling off the ‘no returns’ policy and future days of action: “This will allow us to take into account the outcomes of the reviews by Sir Bill Jeffrey and Sir Brian Leveson, as well as any impact on legal aid spend from falling crime rates, and earlier remuneration changes. In the same way, we will consider any impact from the above factors before introducing the second fee reduction for litigators.”  

As a condition of the deal, the Bar Council and CBA made clear that there was no in principle objection to working on Very High Cost Cases at the new rates, and the Government pledged to continue to engage with the Bar leaders. The Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling stated: “I have always said that, given the current economic climate, I have no choice but to make savings, but that I also wanted to do what I could to ease their effects on lawyers. Hopefully [the] agreement proves that I am true to my word.” 

Judicial cross-examination of vulnerable victims and a blend of the adversarial and inquisitorial systems are amongst proposals being considered by a victims’ law taskforce. Sir Keir Starmer QC, the former Director of Public Prosecutions who is chairing the taskforce, said he supported the pilots testing the pre-recording of evidence but argued for changes “further and faster” and in “formerly ‘no-go’ areas”.  

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on 7 April, Starmer elaborated on ideas he put forward in an article for the Guardian the previous day. He said: “I think there is a real consensus now that things have to change. The last two or three years have seen a number of cases where there has been unacceptable treatment of vulnerable witnesses and victims in court by barristers... judges are becoming much more uncomfortable with aggressive cross-examining.” 

Planning expert Sir Michael Pitt joins the Legal Services Board (LSB) this month as its new Chairman. The senior civil servant succeeds David Edmonds CBE, whose maximum second term came to an end on 30 April.  

Formerly Chief Executive of the Planning Inspectorate, Sir Michael takes up his three-year appointment on 1 May. The planning chief was inaugural Chair of the Infrastructure Planning Commission until its abolition in 2012 and oversaw its transition into the new Inspectorate. 

The “unsustainable and unnecessary” legal aid cuts will drive advocates away from publicly funded criminal work and cause “irreparable” harm to the justice system, the Bar Chairman has warned. 

Nicholas Lavender QC expressed bitter disappointment that the Government is pressing ahead “despite a sustained campaign emphasising that these proposals are contrary to the public interest”. 

Acknowledging that a “fundamental change is occurring in the role of the State. It is retrenching”, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd set out some possible options in a speech to the organisation Justice on 3 March. The justice system is “unprotected from the retrenchment”, the cuts are now thought to be something of a third in real terms since 2010 and “the anticipation is that the cuts will be permanent”. In order to maintain the rule of law, justice must therefore be administered “effectively, speedily and impartially in this new age”. 

“We can only do that by radically examining how we recast the justice system so that it is equally if not more efficient, and able to carry out its constitutional function. The starting point is that we must be radical in our thinking. Too often in the past there has been an inevitable and not necessarily wrong tendency towards conservatism.” 

Over one thousand barristers, solicitors and campaigners demonstrated outside Parliament on Friday 7 March in a second day of action against the Government’s Transforming legal aid proposals. Dubbed ‘Grayling Day’, the protest was organised by the Justice Alliance and supported by the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association and Criminal Law Solicitors Association, and followed the half-day court stay-away on 6 January. 

The rally gathered at Old Palace Yard opposite Westminster at 10am to hear speakers including Janis Sharp, mother of Gary McKinnon, Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six and Shami Chakrabati of Liberty, who described it as a “day of shame” for the Lord Chancellor. Maxine Peake, who plays Martha Costello QC in the TV drama Silk, joined campaigners, as did civil and family practitioners.