News

Profession
Applicants seeking entry to the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) this year will be required to pass the Bar Course Aptitude Test (BCAT) before an offer of a place on the course can be confirmed. 

The Bar Council is supporting a new five-year China-UK Legal Partnership (LPI), organised by the China Britain Law Institute (CBLI) and the Confucius Institute for Business. The LPI will organise annual seminars, held alternately at China’s leading Tsinghua University and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The seminars will bring together prominent British and Chinese experts in trade, commerce and commercial law to address legal issues of significance to Anglo-Chinese business. 

Judiciary
The UK’s only female Supreme Court Justice has called for “affirmative action” on judicial diversity and revival of the positive discrimination debate. 

HMG’s Balance of Competences Review 2013 – 2014
The Bar’s EU Law Committee will coordinate any positions taken by the Bar over the next two years of activity on the government’s detailed review of who does what as between the EU and the UK. At the start of each of the four semesters, government departments will launch calls for evidence setting out the scope of their work and requesting input. At the end of each semester, their open-ended reports will be published online. The current list and sequencing of reports is provided in a table on the FCO website, see: http://bit.ly/YMSuUL 

Legal aid
Lord Neuberger has spoken out on the impact of cuts to legal aid in civil cases, which come into effect on 1 April. 

Judiciary
Lord Justice Toulson, Lord Justice Hughes and Lord Hodge have been appointed as Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, filling the three vacancies arising from Lord Dyson’s appointment as Master of the Rolls in October 2012 and the retirements of Lord Walker and Lord Hope. 

Criminal
Plans for price competitive tendering are to be accelerated, the Lord Chancellor has announced, under a revised timetable to introducing savings to the criminal legal aid budget. 

You have the opportunity to influence how you are supervised by the Bar Standards Board by taking part in this consultation exercise. Available at bit.ly/13dM2OC. 

“Litigant in person” u-turn
Litigants conducting legal proceedings on their own behalf should be referred to as “litigants in person” in all proceedings – no longer “self-represented litigants” as recommended by the Civil Justice Council in 2011. 

Criminal
Charging decisions in non-contested regulatory and traffic offences should be returned to the police, the Attorney General has proposed.