August 2012 Archives

Plans to change the law in Wales on organ donation could still go ahead, despite news that the number of organs donated by Welsh citizens is on the rise, reports the BBC.

The National Assembly of Wales has published a draft bill which could see Wales operating the first 'opt out' system on organ donation in the UK. Under the proposals all citizens would automatically be eligible for organ donation upon their death, unless they instructed doctors or relatives to the contrary. The system could be in place by 2015.

A US lawyer has criticised Britain for refusing to extradite a known paedophile because of concerns that his human rights may be breached.

Shawn Sullivan, 43, has been wanted by US authorities since 1994 after being accused of molesting two 11-year old girls and having sex with a 14-year old in Minnesota.

The Sun newspaper has risked legal action by the Royal Family after deciding to go ahead and publish naked photographs of Prince Harry taken recently in a Las Vegas hotel suite, according to Reuters.

The photographs were first published by celebrity gossip website TMZ.com and quickly circulated around the internet and worldwide press. 

There has been significant press coverage in recent weeks devoted to the forthcoming elections for the posts of Police Commissioner which will be held in November this year.

Much of the controversy has surrounded juvenile convictions and the fact that several high-profile and able candidates have been unable to stand for election because of previous convictions, in some cases from as far back as 40 years ago.

However, despite the uproar, many are still unaware of exactly what Police Commissioners are and what their role will be in the law and order setup.

After students receive their A-level results, if the marks aren't what were hoped for, there is often a period of panic about what to do next. With the prospect of students going through UCAS clearing many are unclear about how best to approach a law degree.

Students are for the first time facing the reality of paying £9,000 per annum for tuition at many UK universities, and with the increase in fees comes the realisation that there may be other, better options to pursuing a career in law.

One tangible and increasingly popular option has arrived with the advent of private universities.

The Government has committed something of a U-turn on climate change after UK Energy Minister Charles Hendry last week announced that the Government will scrap 85 environmental regulations in a move which could save UK businesses some £400m in the next 20 years.

In addition to scrapping 85 regulations, Mr Hendry announced that the Government will reform 48 others as part of the UK Government's 'red tape challenge'.

The 'red tape challenge' was laid out by the Coalition Government and the cabinet office in 2010. The aim of the challenge is to reduce the level of bureaucracy which affects businesses and the public.

A senior Tory peer has complained that the Government is tampering with long-established precedent over the way proposed laws are published, reports The Daily Mail.

Lord True, who was made a life peer in 2010 by Conservative leader David Cameron, believes that the new layout of bills, which is designed to be easier to understand, may in fact be responsible for the dumbing down of important legislative proposals.

The new presentations feature sub-headings and are often bullet-pointed to show key considerations.

Italy's highest court has ruled that hurting male pride is a criminal offence, after hearing a case concerning a row between two cousins, reports the Daily Mail.

The case in question concerned a lawyer, Vittorio and his cousin Alberto, who sits as a Justice of the Peace in the Italian city of Potenza.

Judge Alberto is said to have proclaimed that his lawyer cousin Vittorio had 'no balls' after a heated courtroom argument. Vittorio was so offended that he sued his cousin.

The UK is said to have some of the toughest laws on firearms in the world, with the law repeatedly tweaked and tightened after tragedies such as the Dunblane school massacre in 1996. However, shooting remains a popular hobby and, after our success in the event at the London 2012 Olympics, many are expected to attend shooting clubs looking to try out shooting for the first time.

In UK law the ownership and possession of shotguns, rifles and hand guns are all regulated differently. Shotgun licences are the easiest to obtain and handguns the hardest.

The fastest man that has ever lived, Usain Bolt, may have lit up the London Olympics with commanding gold-medal-winning performances in the 100m, 200m and men's 4x100m relay, but UK athletics audiences will not be seeing him running here again anytime soon, reports The Telegraph.

The Jamaican sprinter has ruled out a return to the UK to run competitively again until the UK Government reviews its taxation laws.

At present UK tax law means that performers such as Bolt are taxed on global earnings including sponsorship deals and endorsements as well as any appearance fee at the highest rate of 50% every time he competes in Britain.

Surfers in Devon and Cornwall have written to the UK Government to ask them for a change in the law to try to protect British beaches and surfing waves.

Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), a surfer's action group which campaigns for clean beaches and to protect the coastline, believes that the surfing industry in Devon and Cornwall is at risk from coastal developments and pollution.

The surfing industry brings around £65m in tourism business to the South West region and it is this which the group fears is threatened by the pace of coastal development.

Buskers in the city of Liverpool have launched a legal bid to challenge a local law which allows police to stop any buskers who they believe are not good enough.

The law has created what are being called 'Simon Cowell cops' as the police are essentially judging musicians before deciding whether they should be allowed to continue.

The rule, which forms part of the city council's Street Management Plan, has sparked controversy, with buskers in the city starting a 'Keep Streets Live' campaign with backing from local lawyers. Now the group plan to launch a judicial review of the policy which they believe amounts to 'restrictive terms and conditions'.

A Southampton pub is at the heart of a dispute over copyright law after falling out with the American owners of the marketing rights to the forthcoming film adaptation of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, the Saul Zaentz Company (SCZ).

The Hobbit pub in Portswood has carried its name for well over 20 years, and enjoys its association with the famous book, offering themed 'Frodo' and 'Gandalf' cocktails on its menu and showing the face of the film star Elijah Wood on its student loyalty card.

However, the pub attracted attention from the major American corporation, who commenced legal proceedings to ask the pub to cease infringing their worldwide copyright over several brands associated with JRR Tolkien.

Northern Irish tourism could be boosted by a change in the law which would allow ramblers to cross over private land, effectively opening up a large number of new longer-distance walking routes which would be popular with tourists.

At present most publically owned land in Northern Ireland is available for recreation, largely due to organisations such as the National Trust.

However, there are issues with privately-owned land, where the public and tourists have no existing right of access.

Cycle safety has yet again been called into question by the death of Dan Harris, 28, who was killed by a bus carrying media representatives to the Olympic Park on 12 August this year.

The tragic accident sparked calls for cycle helmets to be a mandatory addition to the kit required by law for all cyclists on the road.

However, although Olympic gold medal winner Bradley Wiggins supports cycle safety, he stopped short of calling for a change in the law.

The leader of the Conservative party in the Welsh Assembly, Andrew Davies, has called for the devolved governing institution to be renamed the Welsh Parliament.

At present the Welsh have a National Assembly, reflecting the lesser degree of devolution than their Scottish counterparts, who have the Scottish Parliament.

The calls have come after a change in the law in 2011 which finally allowed the Welsh Assembly some limited law-making powers without the need to seek authority from Westminster. This, Mr Davies believes, is sufficiently significant a change for the Welsh Chamber to be renamed a Parliament.

The Foreign Secretary William Hague has moved to reassure the UK Parliament that any additional support offered to Syrian rebels will be offered within the remit of international law.

The UK continues to support the Syrian rebels with provision of non-lethal aid, mostly in the form of communications assistance to help the rebels coordinate their positions, as well as offers of body armour and medical supplies.

It is thought the UK will provide around £5m worth of mobile and satellite phones to allow the rebels to overcome a government communications blockade. Mr Hague confirmed that the UK would not provide any military advice or weaponry.

The Ministry of Defence is facing a legal challenge from an Afghan man who lost five members of his family in a missile strike in Afghanistan in 2010.

Habib Rahman lost two brothers, two uncles and his father-in-law in a missile attack on 2 September 2010 whilst helping a cousin campaign in parliamentary elections in the Rustaq district of Takhar province.

Mr Rahman claims that ten civilians were killed in the missile attack, many of whom were election campaigners and their relatives.

American internet giant Google is facing calls to pay appropriate tax after it was revealed that the company used legal tax-avoidance measures to pay just £6m in tax last year, on a turnover of some £395m.

Now the news of Google's tax avoidance has sparked a petition which attracted some 40,000 signatories in just a few days.

Google uses a variety of complex measures to avoid paying tax to the UK Exchequer. All the mechanisms and techniques are entirely legal and are consistent with UK tax law.

It has slipped from the news in recent wee ks as the Olympics has dominated the news agenda, but behind the scenes work continues on plans to try to stabilise the eurozone economies.

The markets have reacted favourably to the European Central Bank's plans to buy back bonds from troubled economies, effectively combating the problem of the rising cost of short-term borrowing for nations in trouble.

However, many believe that this could be a short-term fix and that the longer term more fundamental problems with the eurozone could resurface. In short, the potential collapse of the Euro is still very much on the cards and with that in mind British businesses are being urged by law firms to consider the consequences of a eurozone collapse.

The Cameroon Olympic Chef de Mission, David Ojong, has confirmed this week that their entire boxing team of five athletes plus two others have absconded from the Olympic Village and cannot be contacted.

The whereabouts of the athletes is unknown, sparking fears that they could simply disappear into the system.

At present the athletes have done nothing wrong, as their visas to come to the UK to compete in the Olympic Games remain valid for the duration of the Olympic period which actually lasts until November. However, with the closing ceremony looming on Sunday, there are fears that the athletes could fail to turn up for the flight home and overstay their visas.

This week Standard Chartered, the UK bank which sponsors Liverpool Football Club, was accused by lawmakers of breaking laws across the pond in the US by facilitating money-laundering transactions with Iran.

The charges are serious, as the US currently operates a strict sanctions embargo against the Iranians, which it suspects of trying to develop nuclear weapons.

The US were so concerned that New York banking regulator Benjamin Lawsky went public with the explosive charge against the UK bank, threatening to cancel the bank's New York State banking licence, which would effectively prevent it from trading in dollars. The threat was sufficiently serious to wipe 25% off the value of Standard Chartered in one day.

A committee of MPs at Westminster has called on the Coalition Government to give the Scottish Parliament new legal powers to enable them to call a referendum on gaining independence.

At present there is overwhelming evidence that the Scottish Executive does not have the power to commission a referendum on its own.

The Scottish Affairs Select Committee is a House of Commons committee charged with reviewing the expenditure, administration and policies of the Scottish Office at Westminster and the Scottish Parliament.

As the fresh year looms for the latest batch of undergraduates to start their chosen course, The Independent looks at whether it has become the norm to study a non-law subject for those wishing to go on to become a solicitor or barrister.

At present there are two graduate routes to entering the legal profession. The traditional route is to study law as an undergraduate degree, before moving on to study either the Legal Practice Course (LPC) for solicitors, or the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC, formerly known as the Bar Vocational Course until 2010).

The other route is to study another subject at undergraduate level, before opting to complete a Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL).

A new survey by business ethics consultancy GoodCorporation has found that up to half of the UK's global logistics companies are compliant with the new UK bribery laws, reports the Financial Times.

GoodCorporation are a leader in corporate responsibility and business ethics and has developed an anti-bribery and corruption framework to help businesses test their compliance with the new Bribery Act 2010 which came into force fully last July.

Their investigation into logistics companies has revealed that one third of companies has failed to publicly outline their approach to fighting bribery, in accordance with the law, and almost half have no statement published on illegal 'facilitation payments' which are paid to speed the passage of goods through customs.

Senior police officers have spoken out against the requirement for new laws to control abuse of users on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The news comes in the wake of yet another high-profile case of Twitter abuse, this time featuring Team GB diving competitor Tom Daley, 18, who was told by one Twitter user that he had 'let down' his dead father.

Mr Daley responded by re-posting the offensive comment and left it to his thousands of supporters to deal with the single abusive user.

Labour MP and former cabinet minister Harriet Harman has spoken out to admit that moves by the previous Labour Government to deregulate the gambling industry had "ruined people's lives", reports The Daily Telegraph.

The statement comes amidst reports that UK gamblers are putting up to £46bn per year on machines known as 'Fixed Odds Betting Terminals' (FOBTs).

FOBTs offer a higher pay-out than traditional gambling machines and allow players to stake up to £100 on each turn.

The death of cyclist Dan Harris on Wednesday evening close to the Olympic Park has prompted calls for a change in the law to make the wearing of cycle helmets compulsory.

The tragic incident involving Mr Harris, 28, occurred just outside the Olympic Park on Ruckholt Road, Stratford, at just after 7:30pm.

Police were called to the scene and arrested the bus driver, a man in his mid-60s, on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.

UK insurers have called for the law relating to claims for underinsured property damaged during riots to be reviewed, after revealing that more than 50% of claims made to the police were turned down after the riots last summer.

The current law allows insurers and the public to make claims to the police for compensation if clients are found not to have appropriate property insurance, or if they are underinsured.

However, the UK insurance lobby claims that the police operate an inconsistent approach to settling claims and have called for the 126-year-old law to be reviewed.

In a week when yet another Twitter user has faced the police for their abusive comments, many have called on the authorities to clarify exactly what is and is not allowed to be posted online.

On Tuesday evening Dorset police moved in on a 17-year-old Twitter user, Rileyy69, who was staying in a guest house in Weymouth, Dorset.

Forty-eight hours earlier the youth had posted offensive messages on the social networking site directed at Team GB synchronised diver Tom Daley.

The world's largest hotel group, Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), this morning stands accused of breaking competition law after allegedly fixing prices with two large online travel agents, reports The Telegraph.

Intercontinental, which operates the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza brands, is thought to have entered into deals with online booking agents Booking.com and Expedia to fix the discounts they can offer on their rooms.

Under UK competition law, price fixing is prohibited.

The Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has announced that the existing criminal law is sufficient to allow prosecutions over the alleged fixing of the Libor inter-bank lending rate.

David Green QC has said that he is satisfied that charges can be brought against individuals who acted to manipulate the Libor rate, although he stopped short of specifying which charges could be brought.

The scandal broke several weeks ago when US and UK Regulators announced a record £290m ($454m) fine for Barclays, after its investigation concluded that traders within the bank had acted to manipulate the inter-bank lending rate.