The Government has set a target for April 2012 for the criminal justice system to ‘go digital’, with the secure electronic transfer of case files between the police, prosecutors and courts becoming the norm, replacing the traditional paper legal bundles used in courts. The Government believes the new technology will save money and make the justice system more efficient. The step forward towards to ‘paperless courtrooms’ has been led by …Read More
The BBC highlights the risks involved in using unregulated Will Writers
The BBC programme The One Show Wednesday 11 January 2012 highlighted the ongoing issue of Will Writers. Almost totally unregulated and with no legal requirement to be qualified anyone can call themselves a Will Writer. In a report for the One Show, Dominic Littlewood interviewed a member of public who confirmed that she and her husband had paid £1,830.00 for Wills which were faulty and essentially not legally binding. For …Read More
ABI guidance on riot compensation
On 11 August 2011, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) published Guidance on the legal position of riot compensation. The Guidance confirms that the occurrence of a riot activates a statutory police compensation scheme under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 (RDA 1886). The scheme compensates organisations and individuals for losses that they could not possibly have predicted. The scheme applies to all persons and organisations who suffer a riot-related loss, …Read More
Two Yorkshire Breweries battle in court.
Sometimes it is the most trivial of things that can be the source of the most bitterly fought battles, as two Yorkshire breweries can attest to. Mr Justice Arnold’s barbed comments in ruling in the matter of Samuel Smith Old Brewery (Tadcaster) v Philip Lee (trading as ‘Cropton Brewery’) reflect the impatience the judiciary harbours when dealing with cases that would have settled were it not for the entrenched positions …Read More
New online tool launched to let people see the length of court proceedings in England and Wales
The Ministry of Justice has launched a new online tool that allows people to see the length of time it takes for cases to be heard in courts across England and Wales, enabling them to see how the justice system is working where they live. The Open Justice website gives detailed court-by-court data relating to family, civil and criminal court proceedings. This is the latest initiative from the Ministry of …Read More
Department of Work and Pensions defeated in Supreme Court
The DWP lost its appeal in the Supreme Court, against a ruling of the Court of Appeal, over the dividing line between between defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes. The ruling now means that the department will have to reconsider its legislation to ensure that pensions are protected where money purchase pension schemes run up deficits. For more information on the ruling and for advice as to how this …Read More
The Government plans to enshrine in law the right of both parents to have access to their children in divorce settlements.
The Government plans to enshrine in law the right of both parents to have access to their children in divorce settlements. According to the Office for National Statistics one in three children lives without their father and campaign groups have for a long time pressed for a change in the law, so that courts would be forced to give access rights to fathers as well as mothers in divorce settlements. …Read More
Government plans to make civil justice cheaper, quicker and less daunting
They include plans to simplify the majority of cases, modernise and streamline the county court system and free up the High Court to only deal with especially complex cases. Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke said: ‘I want to make the system as easy and transparent as possible. I want people to be able to resolve their disputes cheaply and simply through the courts’ very successful mediation service, and I want judges …Read More
The Charities Act 2011 comes into force on 14 March 2012
The reason for this new Act of consolidation is that charity legislation has long been criticised for being disparate and hard to understand; a new Act that consolidates charities legislation in one place was seen by the Government as a way of making charity law more accessible to the general public and third-sector organisations. Although the new Act does not change the law, during 2012 Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts …Read More
Law Society welcomes delay to Government’s civil litigation reforms
The reforms that relate to ‘no win, no fee’ arrangements were expected to be implemented this October, but are now due in April 2013. Law Society chief executive Mr Desmond Hudson said: ‘The delay will give a welcome breathing space for the Ministry of Justice to now properly consider the damaging effect these changes to ‘no win, no fee’ agreements will have on access to justice, particularly for middle England …Read More