Smorgasbord

I managed to get away from court early today. No stringing things out just to earn an extra bob or two for me. No, common sense and good counsel prevailed and the public purse has been saved a pretty penny and justice done etc etc. But as always there is much to do back in [...]

WHY CARE?

Background to this post appears here. . Alas, this is not the beautifully crafted discussion piece I had wanted to post, but I cannot devote as much time to this as I would like, and so I offer it as your starter for ten in its slightly disjointed and unpolished form… . Firstly, let me [...]

Judge Dread – The Future

The Family Justice Review is calling for written evidence by the end of September (see here). Anyone who is considering submitting a response should consider this: at the recent oral evidence session I attended with other lawyers, the panel were asking serious and reaching questions about the extent to which the courts needed to be [...]

Sharia Courts Criticised by Civitas

The Times reports on a recently published Civitas report which is critical of Sharia Courts and in particular the tensions between Sharia and human rights and the law in this jurisdiction. Of particular note for family lawyers or those interested in it is of course the community pressure which can bear upon muslim women, and [...]

Barrister in ‘No Duty to Child’ Shock

One of the first things we are taught in bar school is that our job is to ‘promote and protect fearlessly and by all proper and lawful means the lay client’s best interests and do so without regard to his own interests or to any consequences to himself or to any other person’ (pa 303). Hand [...]

Setting Aside Adoption Orders

The judgment of the Court of Appeal in the Webster v Norfolk adoption saga is available here. A very sad case. The judgment is very long, but in essence the Court of Appeal has held that the adoption orders cannot be set aside and there is no purpose in reopening the findings made against Mr [...]

Family Justice Under Threat

I want to publicise the disastrous proposals to swipe legal aid in family cases. Not just because it will hurt my pocket, but because it is going to have long term and serious consequences for the families who most need the help of the family justice system, which I do not think government, the LSC, lawyers [...]