Features

Mark Hatcher on the General Election, the new Lord Chancellor, members of the Bar elected to the Commons and the first all-Tory meeting of the Cabinet for 18 years  

We were seduced into believing there would be a hung Parliament.  

Michael Zander QC considers the Justice Committee’s Report on the Criminal Cases Review Commission  

The House of Commons Justice Select Committee’s report on the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) makes several strong recommendations but on the central topic it passes the buck to the Law Commission. 

A night to remember?  

“Change and decay in all around I see” – Henry F. Lyte 

Head of Chambers, Lamb Chambers  

Lamb Chambers is an established civil set specialising in property, commercial, personal injury and clinical negligence, employment and intellectual property law. 

Christian Wisskirchen outlines the international work of the Bar Council 

Cross-examination of the vulnerable witness in R v FA: the Court of Appeal takes the ground rules approach and shows what direction such hearings must take, writes Penny Cooper  

“It will never be in the interests of justice that witnesses should be subjected to bullying and intimidatory tactics by counsel or to deliberately and unnecessarily prolonged cross-examination.” - Sir Brian Leveson (2015), Review of Efficiency in Criminal Proceedings , para 264 

The Charter, its background, popular misconceptions and its current popularity – Robin Griffith-Jones and Mark Hill QC on Magna Carta, religion and the rule of law  

“Magna Carta,” said Sir Edward Coke, “is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.” 

And another thing...  

... asked Tony Hancock – “Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you?” From maps and letters to extracts from Hancock’s Half Hour, the British Library’s Magna Carta exhibition has something for everyone. Melissa Coutinho attends a private viewing and sees that it does, in fact, mean a great deal 

Simon Thornton-Wood explains the BSB review of pupillages and the purpose of its upcoming consultation  

“Nothing can substitute experience,” wrote the author Paulo Coelho. 

Great stuff  

Intended as a theatrical contribution to the Magna Carta celebrations, the Read Not Dead’s final production of its series was of The Troublesome Reign of King John of England  by George Peele. David Wurtzel was there