I have written something for The Guardian about our politicians’ rush to create new criminal offences protecting statues. The piece can be found here.
Read moreGuest blogpost by Henry Blaxland QC: Does the buck stop? Legal liability for death from Covid
I am pleased to host this guest blogpost by Henry Blaxland QC of Garden Court Chambers. ________________________________ “If the government were an employee of mine I would have sacked them for gross negligence” – so said Anita Astley, manager of Wren Hall nursing home in Nottinghamshire, where 10 residents died from Covid-19 and 48 carers caught…
Read moreGuest post by Mira Hammad: Covid-19 and the right to protest: an alternative view
I am pleased to host this guest blogpost by Mira Hammad, a pupil barrister at Garden Court North Chambers. It is written in response to the guest blogpost by Rebecca Penfold and Aparna Rao, published last week. _________________________________ In their blogpost Rebecca Penfold and Aparna Rao look at the amended Coronavirus Regulation 7 and…
Read moreGuest post by Hannah Edwards: The clock is ticking – bail breaches and Covid-19
I am pleased to host this guest post by Hannah Edwards, who is a second-six pupil practising at Drystone Chambers. _____________________________________________ In the chaos that Covid-19 has brought to our criminal justice system it is now, more than ever, important for practitioners to remember the fundamental principles when considering breaches of bail in the magistrates’ court….
Read moreGuest post by Rebecca Penfold and Aparna Rao: Covid-19 and the right to protest
I am pleased to host this guest post by Rebecca Penfold of St John’s Buildings and Aparna Rao of 5 Paper Buildings. ___________________________________________________________ The death of George Floyd has sparked a wave of protests from Minneapolis to Manchester, Los Angeles to London. Never before has the international community been subject to such restrictions as those…
Read moreGuest post by Jaime Campaner: The Spanish government’s fight against fake news: who will watch the watchers?
I am pleased to host this guest post by Dr Jaime Campaner, criminal lawyer and professor in procedural and criminal law at the University of the Balearic Islands. ————————– The Spanish Ministry of Justice has recently announced a review of the legal mechanisms to guarantee the right to receive trustworthy information. Any initiative to strengthen…
Read moreGuest post by Joanna Hardy: I’m an online lawyer now. Can you hear me?
“I haven’t met the defendant, Your Honour,” I tell a screen in my kitchen. Silence. “Can… can you hear me?” My words echo through the judge’s laptop in a courtroom three miles away. I hear them again in prosecution counsel’s dining room. My client, who has never set eyes on me before, sits in a…
Read moreGuest post by Aparna Rao: Why the decision to quash the conviction of Cardinal Pell might strike lawyers as troubling
I am pleased to host this guest post by Aparna Rao, of 5 Paper Buildings, published in response to yesterday’s guest post by Edward Henry QC, which argued that the approach taken by the High Court of Australia in allowing the appeal of Cardinal Pell was one that the England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)…
Read moreGuest post by Edward Henry QC: Reflections on the case of Cardinal Pell
I am pleased to host this guest post by Edward Henry QC, of QEB Hollis Whiteman, reflecting on the case of Pell v The Queen [2020] HCA 12, and what the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) in England and Wales can learn from the High Court of Australia. ————————– On 7th April Cardinal Pell was cleared by the…
Read moreDoes it matter that Quiz got the law so hopelessly wrong?
Last week, ITV premiered the three-part drama Quiz, based on the real-life story of the “coughing Major” Charles Ingram (who, despite his popular title, in fact engaged in no coughing himself), and his wife Diana, who along with co-conspirator Tecwen Whittock were convicted at Southwark Crown Court in 2003 of procuring the execution of a…
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