Immigration cap overturned by high court judges
Guardian: Theresa May, the home secretary, illegally bypassed parliament to bring in temporary limit on non-EU workers, judges rule. Two senior judges have ruled that the temporary limit imposed from 28 June on skilled migrants from outside the European Union is unlawful because ministers sidestepped proper parliamentary approval when it was introduced.
UK Human Rights Blog : This blog just gets better and better and is a ‘must read’ if you are a practitioner, academic or student interested in the field. While quite a few members of 1 Crown Office Row are involved in the blog and post regularly – and Rosalind English and Angus McCullough QC are editors with Adam Wagner (Pictured), Adam Wagner seems to be tireless in his coverage of the important human rights issues of our times – and long may that continue.
UK Human Rights Blog is written by members of 1 Crown Office Row barristers’ chambers. Subscription is free.
Court of appeal rejects prisoner vote plea, government announces plans
Carl Gardner, Author of the Head of Legal blog has a useful analysis of the prisoner votes controversy…
Prisoners’ votes: the government triangulates
More muscular parliament would make for better lawmaking
Joshua Rozenberg has in interesting piece in The Guardian: In the face of the government’s desire to legislate, MPs need to be able to scrutinise prospective laws more thoroughly
Parliament should be less supine in the face of the government’s desire to legislate. So says the Hansard Society, the UK’s leading independent political research charity, in an analysis of lawmaking launched at the House of Commons on Tuesday night.
Lawcast 175: Professor Gary Slapper on the reform of legal education
Today I am talking to Professor Gary Slapper, Director of The Open University Law School. Legal education is under review by the profession and this podcast is the fourth in a series of eight on this the reform of legal education
***
Other podcasts in the legal education reform series
Lawcast 172: On the reform of legal education with Scott Slorach, College of Law
Lawcast 171: Nigel Savage, CEO of The College of Law
Lawcast 170: professor Richard Moorehead, Cardiff Law School, University of Cardiff
MPs warned they will be ‘overloaded’ due to legal aid cuts
The Law Society Gazette: A group campaigning against the government’s legal aid cuts has sent Christmas cards to MPs warning them that they could be overwhelmed with constituents’ problems.
Justice for All, a coalition of legal and advice agencies, politicians, trade unions, community groups and members of the public, said that the £350m cutbacks ‘will leave thousands of people with nowhere to turn for help with serious and urgent problems’. The card sent to MPs shows a picture of Father Christmas carrying a sack of constituents’ problems to a local MP’s surgery……..
I have little doubt that MPs will be deluged with constituents seeking help. MPs may well come to rue the day that the government has decided to save a relatively modest amount of money (in the grand scheme of things) by cutting back on access to law and justice. I doubt that MPs will be equal to the task of giving legal advice to constituents even if the MPs are lawyers themselves. We shall see.
No naps, and no clothes in bed: Manning’s cell life
The Independent: The harsh prison detention conditions endured by Bradley Manning – the US soldier who is alleged to have supplied classified government documents to WikiLeaks – have emerged. For the last seven months, Private Manning, 23, has been kept in a cell six feet wide and 12 feet long, in solitary confinement at a maximum security military jail at Quantico, Virginia.
Lieutenant Colonel David Coombes, the lawyer defending him, provides a rather graphic description of the conditions. It makes our detention without charge rules look amateur. If the Americans can do this to one of their own – just imagine what they could do to others caught up in the legal system on this and other related issues?
And finally a quick look at a few blogs if you happen to be short of something to do in the week leading up to Christmas. I know I am…. and these are worth reading….
Dan Hull, a US lawyer, writes the eclectic WhatAboutClients? blog. While he does cover law and client service issues on his blog, there are always interesting snippets…gems of random information. I always enjoy visiting WAC?
Obiter J, author of Law and Lawyers, has a detailed piece on PFC Bradley Manning…
Plea bargains or plea discussions?
A quick way of keep abreast of the blogging of our American friends in law – Colin Samuels of Infamy or Praise does a week Round Tuit – always worth a read.
David Allen Green, aka the blogger Jack of Kent, is well known on Twitter for his handling of the Paul Chambers #twitterjoketrial case and other serious cases. His blog, if you are not already a reader, is a good one to follow.
On Family Law matters…. a good daily starting point must be John Bolch’s excellent Family Lore
A must read for daily law news: Inner Temple’s Current Awareness blog
And… a bit of lighter reading….. amusing and perceptive: Babybarista blog | Anonymous Assistant | Magic Circle Minx
And… a bit of Charles Fincher Esq…
With or without cuts in availability of legal aid the processing time at my court is now around three weeks. I`m sure the Minister has taken that into consideration when he says his target is to raise the current court “utilisation rate” of 64% to 80%. I don`t think that even discounting a lack of Ministerial joined up thinking begins to raise my 20% rate of understanding of the current mess to even 21%.
Thanks for the mention, sir. Merry, Merry!