News

The financial limit of the Patents County Court (“PCC”) should be set at £500,000, according to the Judiciary Working Group on Reform of the PCC. 

The recommended limit, which is higher than originally proposed, follows a consultation by the Working Group on PCC reforms. 

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has appointed three new Board members, following an open recruitment process. 

Richard Thompson OBE, the new lay member, will take up the position on the Board immediately. Richard will continue in his existing role as Chief Constable with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC). Richard was the first non police officer to be appointed as Chief Constable since 1946, and prior to joining the Police, he served for eighteen years in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, involving overseas postings in Stockholm, Geneva, Pristina and Baghdad. The two other Board appointments are barrister members – Sam Stein QC and Patricia Robertson QC – who will start in January. Sam Stein QC is a criminal practitioner at Dyers Chambers, and was called to the Bar in 1988. Sam brings to the Board a long standing interest and experience in quality assurance and pupillage issues. He is a member of the BSB Quality Assurance Committee, is chair of the Pupillage Subcommittee of the Education and Training Committee, and chair of the Publicly Funded Barristers Advisory Group. 

Baroness Deech has called for a change in public attitude towards divorce. 

In the first of six Gresham College lectures on family law, Divorce Law: A Disaster?, Baroness Deech of Cumnor DBE outlined the cost of divorce in financial and emotional terms, and called for a “new debate on marriage and the family under the umbrella of moral and civic renewal”, although she accepted that it was “unlikely to provide any consensus.”  “Divorce is not a private matter, it is of real public concern and cost, with a ripple effect on the family, the community and the whole country,” she said. “So public attitudes have to be changed, just as they have been in relation to environmental issues and smoking, with greater or lesser success.” She recommended that divorcing couples should be made to endure a 12 month waiting period in order to hold or reverse the rise in divorce.“My own remedy would be an introduction of a waiting period to stop divorce being so quickly granted, even where the ground is one of the speedy ones,” she said. “I would add to the present grounds of divorce a provision that no decree shall be granted until at least 12 months have elapsed from the service of the petition (the start of the formalities). This would ensure that no petitioner would be free to remarry for at least one year after the beginning of the process, regardless of the reasons for the divorce.” 

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) is working towards making decisions about barristers joining Legal Disciplinary Practices and Alternative Business Structures. As explained in the BSB’s response to the Legal Services Board’s discussion paper ’Wider access, better value, strong protection’, the BSB is concerned that some evidence is obtained to ensure that the effect on consumers is better understood. 

In its response to the LSB’s discussion paper, the BSB emphasised its commitment to maintaining the availability of a broad choice of expert advocates and specialist advisory services to the public. However, in considering the LSB proposals for a new regulatory regime, the BSB, in its response, set out a number of serious concerns. 

Work is underway in the new Parliament to progress the Commission’s 2009 proposal for a directive to combat late payments in commercial transactions between businesses, or between businesses and public authorities. Once adopted, it will repeal and replace Directive 2000/35/EC which over time, has been found to be inadequate. 

See: http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0126:FIN:EN:PDF 

The BSB’s annual report is now available. Contact the editor of the BSB News for a paper copy or go to the BSB’s website to view it. www.barstandardsboard.org.uk 

The government has “gone back on its word and resumed its attack on the criminal Bar” the new Criminal Bar Association (“CBA”) Chairman Paul Mendelle QC has warned. 

In a letter to The Times , Mendelle, of 25 Bedford Row, accused the government of “spinning the facts” in its proposals to reduce fees for criminal defence work. The proposals were presented “as correcting an anomaly in order to bring defence fees into line with prosecution fees. They are nothing of the sort and the spin disguises a naked attempt by the government to go back on its word. 

The Chancery Bar Association has published a detailed 88-page response to the preliminary Jackson Review into civil litigation costs. It recommends that judges take a greater role in case management and make more “bold” decisions about direction, scope of disclosure, witness statements and suchlike. It cautions against extending the current range of fixed costs as this would impose an unfair burden on successful litigants. 

Security incidents at court do happen and can be a source of great concern to counsel. 

In recent months, the issue of court security has been brought to the attention of the Legal Services Committee and it has been seeking to establish the extent of the problem. To this end we have asked barristers to let us have details of any violent incidents at court, including incidents of verbal abuse. 

The EU institutions are engaged in strenuous efforts to create a Unified EU Patent Litigation system, and within that, to secure an Agreement on the European and Community Patents Court and Draft Statute. To that end, the Commission has produced a working document setting out draft rules of procedure, limited at this stage to procedural rules before the Court of First Instance. 

See: http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/09/st11/st11813.en09.pdf The relevant Council working group is to meet repeatedly in the coming weeks, under the enthusiastic watch of the Swedish Council Presidency, to try to reach agreement.