Recently in Law and Government Category

At a speech at the London School of Economics this week, Lord Justice Sumption, the latest addition to the judiciary of the Supreme Court, said that he believes that the state will be held to account more often than it has done in the past.

Commentators are taking his assessment seriously: judges at Supreme Court level really do have an influence on the way the law develops in the United Kingdom.

His speech gives us the first idea of his political persuasions. He is one of the few judges in recent decades to have been appointed to the UK's highest court without having previously held a full-time judicial post.

One week ago the Chancellor George Osborne claimed that signing up to the latest EU reforms of the banking structure would leave him looking like "an idiot". However, with further discussions on the subject timetabled this week, it seems that he may be ready to soften his stance.

The UK objections centre on French and German desires to alter the way the Basel III capital requirements are implemented in European banks.

Basel III is an internationally agreed set of rules designed to ensure that banks keep enough cash in reserve to protect themselves from a downturn in the market.

The Queen takes to parliament later today to deliver her speech at the State Opening of Parliament.

The speech, which contains details of the legislative programme for the next parliamentary session is widely tipped to offer a much reduced programme of new laws, with the 'squeezed middle' looking unlikely to gain any favour after the recent news that the economy did indeed dip into a second recession in the first quarter of 2012.

The Prime Minister and his deputy were in Essex yesterday, to promote a strengthening of their coalition government, and pledge a fresh commitment to jobs and growth in the wake of the dismal financial outlook.

Scottish MPs have agreed that the law relating to the setting of a minimum price per unit of alcohol will include a clause allowing it to be repealed after six years if the policy fails.

The so called 'sunset clause' was negotiated into the legislation by Conservative MSPs as a bargain for gaining their support for the deal, which has now passed the second stage of parliamentary approval.

Under the proposed plans, retailers in Scotland will be obliged to sell alcohol for a minimum price per unit. The hope is that the law will result in a price rise for the cheapest forms of alcohol, including cider which is often sold in high strength and in large quantities for relatively low cost.

The Government is under pressure to put an end to anti-terror legislation which allows police officers the right to stop and search without reasonable grounds, providing they make an appropriate application to the Home Office.

The powers were brought in last year as an amendment to the Terrorism Act 2006. Section 47a replaced the highly controversial section 44 powers, which were ruled unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights after a decade of use.

Under section 47a police can apply to the Home Office for authorisation to conduct searches in an area if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that an act of terrorism may take place. If successful, they may then stop and search any person in that area without due reason.

The Government is being urged by academics to protect education institutes after the College of Law was sold to Montagu Private Equity for £200m.

The College of Law was formerly a charity teaching law courses in London and six other cities across England. After the sale, the charity activities will be separated from the potentially profit-making legal education and training sectors of the business.

The College was set up in 1962 and is one of only five privately owned higher-education institutions in the country with the ability to award degrees.

The Government is considering plans to force cigarette manufacturers to sell their products in simple, plain packaging in a move to further reduce the attraction of smoking.

They yesterday announced a three-month consultation which will ask for views on the proposal, which will include a suggestion for a standardised template, leaving the packaging as it is, or asking for suggestions for different packaging.

The move comes amid government figures which show that despite a reduction in the number of smokers, the habit still claims more than 100,000 UK deaths each year.

A leading group of Sri Lankan Tamils have announced that they have instructed lawyers to issue a judicial review of the decision by Foreign Secretary William Hague not to declare a Sri Lankan military official 'persona non grata'.

The Global Tamil Forum has instructed firm Birnberg, Peirce and Partners after Mr Hague refused to declare Major General Prasanna Silva unwelcome in the UK. The Major General is now the military attaché to the Sri Lankan High Commission in London.

The Tamil group alleges that the Major General was involved in the systematic attacks on Tamil civilians between January 2008 and May 2009. At that time he was the senior commander of the Sri Lankan army.

The Law Commission has announced that it plans to repeal an ancient law relating to the road between Anglesey and London.

The move comes as part of a wider campaign by the Commission to repeal ancient and obsolete measures, including a legal provision for highway building and repairs between London and Holyhead.

The so-called turnpike legislation permitted the charging of tolls on parts of these roads as far back as 1895. The Law Commission has argued that removing such laws will result in a more intelligible statute book.

David Blunkett, the former Labour Home Secretary under Tony Blair, has stepped into the legal row over the memoirs of a former front-bench colleague, Peter Hain.

Last week it emerged that Mr Hain was to be prosecuted under an ancient and little-used law known as 'scandalising the court'. The action is being brought by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin.

The case concerns a passage in Mr Hain's memoirs, published by Biteback Publishing which is also being targeted by this legal action. Mr Hain was Northern Ireland secretary under the Blair government from 2005 to 2007. In his book, he criticises Mr Justice Paul Girvan for his handling of an important judicial review case.

Senior Metropolitan police officers are supporting calls to change the law so that phone-tap evidence can be heard at inquests.

The calls have come after the shooting by police of Mark Duggan, an event which sparked rioting in Tottenham last summer.

Under the current law, the existence and content of any intercept evidence cannot be disclosed to a coroner or be heard in a public court. This is an exception, however, as almost all other types of surveillance evidence, including that obtained from bugging and surveillance cameras are permitted to be given to any court.

The Co-operative group, which includes the popular supermarket chain, as well as banking and funeral services, has become one of the first non-legal companies to be approved to sell legal services under new legislation which came into effect last October.

The Legal Services Act 2007 is set to revolutionise the provision of legal services in the UK. Under the terms of the Act, non-legal businesses can now sell legal services as part of what are known as 'Alternative Business Structures' (ABS).

In addition to allowing non-law firms to enter the legal services market for the first time, the law also allows existing law firms to seek investment from external sources including via floatation on the stock markets.

The controversial bill to reform the NHS, making GPs responsible for the commissioning of services and abolishing Primary Care Trusts received its royal assent yesterday to formally become law.

Yet as the dust settles on the legislation and the reality sets in, it has emerged that some GPs are facing windfall profits on shares bought in private healthcare firms who are set to benefit in the new-look NHS.

Doctors' leaders are now warning that any situation in which GPs are seen to profit from changes to the way the health system is run would be bad for patient trust and could lead to more NHS services being run privately.

This week saw Chancellor George Osborne give his third budget. So far it has received a mixed response, with many newspapers focusing on the freeze to pensioners' incomes and the increase of the tax threshold to £9,205 by April 2013.

However, there are many provisions which will affect families, and so family lawyers have been encouraged to study the budget carefully for the impact that it may have on their clients.

UK climate-change law, which is some of the most advanced and expensive in the world, will remain on the statute book. This is despite pleas from Chancellor George Osborne for a reduction in costly bureaucracy.

The Government has been conducting a review of the Climate Change Act 2008 and other environmental laws.

The Act underpins most of the Government's policies on reducing carbon emissions to meet internationally agreed targets. At present the aim is to cut carbon emissions as a country by 80% by 2050.