Justice Matters

Mark Mulholland QC and Heather Phillips consider the lessons learned from the UK’s first DPA – and find that early reporting and a culture of compliance should be at the fore when the commercial long-term future of an organisation is at stake  

A new mechanism of deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) was introduced in February 2014 by s 45 and Sch 17 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 (CCA 2013), whereby an agreement may be reached between a designated prosecutor and an organisation facing prosecution for certain economic or financial offences.  

Does Latin still have a place in the modern judgment? Mr Justice McCloskey considers the patterns, and challenges, of judgment-writing in the common law system  

The Latin legal term curia advisari vult  (abbreviation cur adv vult ), meaning ‘the court wishes to consider the matter’ (literally ‘to be advised’), is familiar to most in the UK legal system and appears in countless thousands of law reports.  

Robin Griffith-Jones explores whether religious convictions should still play a part in the debate on assisted dying  

'Oh that the Everlasting had not fixed, His canon ’gainst self-slaughter!' Hamlet I.2.131-2
  

Paramjit Ahluwalia examines the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and asks whether it will work to abolish today’s trade in human capital  

Presenting his first Abolitionist Bill to the House of Commons in 1789, William Wilberforce concluded his speech with the words: ‘Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other way but you can never again say that you did not know.’ 

Peter Grieves-Smith and Sarah Wood report on the use of iPads as jury bundles in a recent fraud trial and examine whether this is the next stage in the evolution of our courts 

In the second interview in this Counsel series, Melissa Coutinho speaks to family law blogger, Lucy Reed  

Lucy Reed is the creator of Pink Tape , a blog started in 2007 which led to her being one of the The Times’  top legal bloggers (March 2011) and was described in The Guardian  in May 2011 as “one of the best legal bloggers for style and content”.  

The Dublin system determines that asylum applications in the EU must be made in the country into which the asylum seeker first arrives. The Syrian refugee crisis exposes the system as not fit for purpose, argues Chris McWatters  

Most people following the story of Syrian refugees tramping through Europe were horrified by this September’s images of desperate families being fought off with tear gas and water cannon at the Hungarian and Croatian frontiers.  

The Criminal Bar has just received a Better Case Management Information Pack. Peter Hungerford-Welch explains the background to its arrival, the new case management system and what this means for counsel  

In January 2015, the Review of Efficiency in Criminal Proceedings  by Sir Brian Leveson was published.  

Bob Hutchinson, who recently resigned after serving for 11 years as a magistrate, outlines the impact of CCCs on magistrates’ discretion and judicial fairness  

In April this year the Government introduced the criminal court charge (CCC) in England and Wales.  

Following the first conviction under the new law, Neelam Sarkaria and Detective Chief Superintendent Gerry Campbell ask whether legislation alone can eradicate the evil of forced marriage and protect its victims  

“Forced marriage is a gross abuse of human rights.