News

In 2010 the International Committee and Secretariat will offer a number of opportunities to develop international practice. This will include programmes for incoming visits from India, Germany, France and Russia and outward visits to the Middle East and China. Precise timings have not yet been agreed. Interested members are encouraged monitor the International webpages and Bar News. Members may also join the Interest Groups on India, China and the Middle East in order to receive email notices of upcoming activities.

Lord Hoffmann has spoken out against Law Commission proposals to help individuals seek redress against public bodies. 

Currently, individuals must establish that the public body owes them a specific statutory duty or is in breach of a duty of care at common law before bringing a claim for loss. In January 2009, the Law Commission proposed abolishing this and instead letting individuals claim compensation if the public body has been “seriously at fault” in the exercise of its powers—an entirely new concept in English law.
In a speech on “Reforming the law of public authority negligence”, Lord Hoffmann said: “I think that is an absolutely terrible idea and I hope it will be quietly dropped.” Creating such a liability would add to the financial burdens on the public body. Moreover, public bodies must make choices about spending priorities, therefore asking judges to decide on these choices would be inappropriate, he said. 

THE Bar Council has welcomed the decisions taken by the Bar Standards Board (BSB) which will permit members of the Bar to supply legal services within new business structures. The BSB has approved the creation of Legal Disciplinary Practices (LDPs) and Barrister only Partnerships (BoPs). Any wider decision to permit barristers to work in Alternative Business Structures (ABSs) will be deferred until the effects of the transitional LDP regime can be assessed and following further consultation in 2010.  The BSB’s decisions follow more than two years of careful deliberation by the Board and its Alternative Business Structures Working Group. 

The China sub-committee of the International Committee was pleased to welcome a delegation of nine office holders from the Tianjin Bar Association to London on 7 December. The Bar Council established a good relationship with the Tianjin Bar during a visit to the city in 2008 where it conducted a seminar on environmental law for an audience of about 100 local lawyers. The delegation was interested in strengthening the relationship between the Tianjin Bar Association and the Bar Council, learning about chambers management, meeting with some law schools interested in training young Chinese lawyers. To this end the delegation had meetings with Desmond Browne QC, BPP Law School, as well as a lunch with barristers in Lincolns Inn and a meeting at 39 Essex Street Chambers to learn more about the management of a commercial set. 

The 24th Annual Bar Conference was held at the Lancaster London Hotel on Saturday 7 November 2009. The Conference theme was ‘Access to Justice – Justice for All?’ The Bar Standards Board’s afternoon session was titled: Disclosure of disciplinary findings and service complaints. The session was introduced by Baroness Ruth Deech, Chair of the Bar Standards Board and was moderated by Lady Justice Smith. 

The session involved a discussion on the pros and cons of disclosure of information relating to complaints and disciplinary findings in the context of increasing access to justice. The complete panel was made up of the following people: 

Case C-63/08 Pontin v Comalux, preliminary reference. Pregnant workers must enjoy effective judicial protection of their rights under Community law. Where the only remedy available under national legislation to a worker dismissed during pregnancy does not provide adequate time-limits within which to bring proceedings, that legislation introduces less favourable treatment linked to pregnancy and constitutes discrimination against female employees 

The EU is taking the steps needed for it to sign up to the Hague Protocol of 2007, which would mean that EC Regulation No 4/2009 on jurisdiction and enforcement of Maintenance Obligations becomes applicable either on 18 June 2011 or from the date of application of the Hague Protocol. 

See: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.dopubRef=//EP//NONSGML+COMPARL+PE428.221+01+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN 

The Commission plans to host a Conference on the operation and impact of the European Company Statute in May 2010. 

A Bar Council group of experts in commercial and criminal law visited China for a mission to further the longstanding cooperation between the legal professions of the two countries and raise awareness of the Bar of England and Wales and the international work of barristers amongst Chinese law firms and businesses who engage in international commerce. 

The Bar Council delegation visited Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen between 2nd and 10th November. Seminars were held in each city to showcase the Bar’s expertise in the areas of international arbitration, international investment law and white collar crime and to hear from Chinese lawyers about the latest developments in these areas in China. The full press release is available on the Bar Council website (www.barcouncil.org.uk) 

JONATHAN Rayner, writing for the Law Society Gazette, and Joshua Rozenberg have won the Bar Council’s Legal Reporting Awards for 2008 - 2009. 

Jonathan Rayner’s piece, published in the Law Society Gazette on the 5th March 2009, addressed his son’s mental illness and his journey through the health and justice systems. Joshua Rozenberg’s winning broadcast entry was his programme for Radio 4, Top Dogs, which was broadcast on the 8th September 2009. This programme addressed the genesis and role of the Supreme Court, and was produced by Simon Coates.