News

The Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, has reduced the maximum success fee that lawyers can charge in defamation cases from 100 per cent to 10 per cent.

At the beginning of March, the Bar Council, together with the Law Society, jointly responded to 3 linked Commission consultations in the competition field, launched in January. See: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consultations/2010_best_practices/index.html 

A campaign of “mythbusting”, flexible working opportunities and more judicial job shadowing are some of the recommendations of Baroness Neuberger’s report into judicial diversity. 

The final report of the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Panel on Judicial Diversity, chaired by Baroness Neuberger, rejects the use of diversity quotas and targets for judicial appointments. Instead, there should be a “fundamental shift in approach” towards diversity at all stages of a judicial career. 

Baroness Stern’s independent review into the way in which rape complaints are handled is “a well-researched and important piece of work”, Lord Justice Thomas, deputy head of Criminal Justice, has said. “We hope it will lead to the public being better informed about the way in which rape cases are dealt with.”

District Judge Monty Trent, the new President of the Association of District Judges, has called for district judges to be trained in mediation and expressed concern about the “dilapidated” state of county court buildings. 

 “It is high time for mediation and other alternative dispute resolution techniques to be part of the armoury of every civil court in higher value cases,” he said. “Instead of private or court-annexed mediation, district judges should be trained as mediators and employ their skills in achieving settlements.” 

The EP held a hearing in late March with National Parliaments on the proposal for a Consumer Rights Directive (2008/0196/COD). The focus of the debate was the appropriate level of consumer protection and the Commission's full harmonisation approach. The Bar supports targeted full harmonisation, leaving issues such as remedies to Member State national law. The EP is aiming for an adopted report on the proposal by the summer. 

The Belgian Council Presidency, which will last from July to December 2010, will undertake a broad study on the effectiveness of existing EU criminal justice measures and the possible need to replace many of them with new Lisbon Treaty legislative instruments. 

It was agreed by the Bar Standards Board's Education & Training Committee that reports of BSB monitoring visits to Bar Vocational Course providers should be published on the BSB website from the Academic Year 2009-10. Reports from some of the providers are now on our site and all reports will be published when finalised. You can view the reports at: www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/Educationandtraining/aboutthebvc/ReportsProvider/ 

The number of complaints against judges has dropped, according to the Office of Judicial Complaints (“OJC”).

The judicial balancing act required in cases involving competing human rights has created a “fundamental shift” in the way courts “do things”, Mr Justice Eady has said. 

Opening City University’s new Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism in March, Eady J pointed out that Parliament gave the courts “a free hand” to apply Strasbourg jurisprudence on the law of privacy.