Justice Matters

Three years on from the Corston Report, Kim Hollis QC, who has recently visited Styal Prison, outlines the implications of sending women, many of whom have children, to prison 

In 2007 the Corston Report: a review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system (“the Corston Report”), commissioned by the Home Secretary following the deaths of six women at Styal Prison in Cheshire, took a hard look at whether and for how long women needed to be sent to prison. Baroness Corston recommended the immediate establishment of an Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group for women who offend to govern a new Commission and to drive forward an agenda properly to address specific issues relating to women’s criminality, and with a visible direction in respect of women in custody. She further crucially recommended that custodial sentences/remands into custody for women must be reserved only for serious and violent offenders who pose a “threat to the public”. 

Paul Mendelle QC and Ali Naseem Bajwa argue that safety interviews should only be conducted when it is absolutely necessary to do so 

There is a growing trend in terrorism investigations to conduct one or more interviews with a suspect in circumstances where he does not enjoy his usual minimum statutory rights. These interviews have no formal title and the term “safety interview” does not appear in any Code of Practice. They would be more accurately described as “urgent interviews” but investigators and courts usually refer to interviews conducted in these circumstances as “safety interviews”; accordingly, for the sake of consistency, we too shall use that term. 

The practice of conducting safety interviews is controversial and open to abuse. Moreover, there is a degree of uncertainty amongst lawyers, the public and even investigators as to what a safety interview is, what rules govern its conduct and admissibility and the value of such an interview. Each of these issues will be addressed in this article. 

With the general election looming, Richard Gordon QC argues that the price of restored trust in democracy may be a codified constitution 

Is it time for the UK to have a written constitution? In suggesting that we had no constitution, the 19th Century French political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville was wrong. Britain does have a constitution but it is old-fashioned, top-down and—as far as the rest of the free, democratic world is concerned—of a fast-disappearing kind. 

What causes confusion is that, unlike us, nearly all democratic States have a written (in the sense of codified) constitution. Only Israel and New Zealand join us in relying on a nebulous body of rules, some contained in Acts of Parliament, some in constitutional conventions, some scattered around in the most diverse sources. The expenses scandal and the ensuing loss of trust in politics led many (myself included) to think we needed fundamental change. 

Adrian Hughes QC and Steven Thompson discuss the Bar Council’s engagement with China’s rapidly developing legal market.  

Change in China has been rapid and extraordinary since the first visit of a Bar Council delegation 20 years ago. At that time, the Pu Dong commercial area of Shanghai was still marshland and the emerging Chinese legal profession entering only its second decade. Now, as the main image of Pu Dong’s financial district shows (see below), the landscape is completely different. 

Employment vetting law has been rewritten, warns Timothy Pitt-Payne 

In 2004, a woman (“L”) was employed by an employment agency that provided staff for schools. She worked as a playground assistant, supervising children during their lunchtime break. The agency applied for an enhanced criminal record certificate (“ECRC”) from the Criminal Records Bureau (“CRB”). The ECRC did not show any criminal convictions; but it disclosed that L’s son had previously been placed on the child protection register on grounds of neglect, and that he had been removed from the register after being convicted of robbery and given a custodial sentence. Soon afterwards she was told by the agency that it no longer required her services. 

In April 2009 four regional Administrative Court Centres were opened. David Gardner explains why this was necessary 

The Administrative Court (part of the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court) hears all applications for judicial review and also some statutory appeals and applications (including applications for habeas corpus and extradition appeals). It is by way of the judicial review procedure that a person may challenge the act or omission of a public body. There are few better illustrations of the accountability of the State than the existence of the judicial review process. 

Desmond Browne QC argues that the law of privacy should provide equal protection to both private citizens and celebrities 

In recent months there has been much debate whether we have gone too far in protecting rights under art 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950  and along the way sacrificed too much of our freedom of expression under art 10. But whilst our new domestic law of privacy protects (perhaps even excessively) celebrities against the media, it is paradoxical that there remain concerns about the adequacy of the citizen’s protection against the State. Should not the same Convention right be protecting both? 

In the wake of the recent Court of Appeal interlocutory judgment giving the green light for the first trial on indictment by a judge alone, David Wolchover and Anthony Heaton-Armstrong propose some convenient and inexpensive jury tampering countermeasures 

The Northern Ireland judge-only Diplock courts for the trial of cases involving a terrorist dimension linger on, though nowadays with a much reduced throughput. But while the risk of jury intimidation and religious bias may have waned in Ulster the perceived problem of jury tampering—or “nobbling”—had supposedly increased in England and Wales to such an extent that provision was finally enacted in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (“CJA 2003”), s 44 for trials on indictment to be conducted where appropriate without a jury. 

In the wake of the recent Court of Appeal interlocutory judgment giving the green light for the first trial on indictment by a judge alone, David Wolchover and Anthony Heaton-Armstrong propose some convenient and inexpensive jury tampering countermeasures 

The Qatar Law Forum in May 2009 brought together global leaders in law to mark a shared commitment to the rule of law, reports Khadija Ali.  

The Qatar Law Forum took place in Doha from 29 to 31 May 2009 under the patronage of His Highness the Emir of the State of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani.