This week’s roundup of legal news and comment includes new courts, old cuts, fallout from Grenfell, a dark funeral, and help and support for the Bar and its babies. 

Courts

New “flagship” court for City of London

At a time when many courts are being closed down and rationalised, and while others struggle to cope with wonky video links and absent minded-wifi, it may seem rather extravagant to be promising millions of pounds for a brand new court complex to deal with cybercrime and fraud cases. But then the new courts are going to be built in the City of London, with the backing of the very wealthy City of London Corporation, as well as HM Courts and Tribunal Services (HMCTS), the Ministry of Justice and senior judges.

As the Guardian reports, 

“The courthouse to be built near Fleet Street will have space for 18 courtrooms. Its primary focus will be on fraud, economic crime and cybercrime, though it will also hear criminal and civil cases currently listed at the City of the London magistrates and county courts.

The investment is intended to bolster the City’s reputation after the UK leaves the EU. It will further concentrate legal expertise in a small area of London around the Royal Courts of Justice, the Old Bailey, the Rolls Building — where most commercial cases are heard — and Inns of Court.”

So bully for London and law-law land, but what about the provinces? Wouldn’t it be great to sink loads of money into a massive new court complex in Leeds or Bristol or Cardiff? But then the City of London with its shining towers of commerce and its formal dinners in livery company halls would miss out, wouldn’t it? And part of the purpose of the scheme is, says the Guardian, “to promote the UK’s financial and legal services post-Brexit”. One might be forgiven for thinking that was supposed to have been the point of the Rolls Building, now known as the Business and Property Court. 

It all chimes nicely with  the Ministry of Justice’s new Legal Services are GREAT public relations campaign, whose separate website features a lovely, but entirely inappropriate, gavel. (Eheu!) No doubt that’s because foreign johnnies and janeys wanting to forum shop for their applicable law clauses will recognise it as the international symbol for judicial probity. Or something. 

Meanwhile… 

when it comes to non-commercial litigation, money is still too tight to mention. Except that that is exactly what Mr Justice Bodey did, in his valedictory speech in Court 4 at the Royal Courts of Justice on Friday, in a robust attack on the legal aid cuts (which the government is supposedly, eventually, going to review) saying it was “shaming” to preside over cases in which individuals are forced to represent themselves. As the Guardian reported: 

“Bodey, who has been based in the family division of the high court in London for 18 years, said more people had been forced to represent themselves at hearings he had overseen in recent years, and they did not have the required knowledge or skills. The judge said he had felt “first hand” their frustration and he had sometimes had to act as their counsel and ask questions on their behalf.”

So it’s all a bit Upstairs Downstairs when it comes to money for legal services. For more on the parlous state of legal aid, see Sir Henry Brooke’s blog posts on the recent Bach Report. 

Grenfell Inquiry

MOU with police

The inquiry website has published a memorandum of understanding with the Metropolitan Police Service clarifying their different and respective roles in investigating events surrounding the catastrophic tower block fire in June this year, in which 69 people have been confirmed to have died, although it is expected that the final death toll will be about 80. According to the inquiry website: 

“The Chairman of the Inquiry will use all reasonable efforts, so far as consistent with his statutory duty under the Inquiries Act 2005, to conduct the Inquiry in a way which does not impede or compromise the MPS investigation or its integrity.”

The inquiry website announced last week that expert witnesses have been instructed to provide a range of technical advice and expert reports to assist the work of the Inquiry in delivering against its Terms of Reference. Details of the expert witnesses have been added to the inquiry website.

Prejudice against the inquiry chairman, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, seems to have died down over the summer, at any rate in the media. He may have made an initially awkward impression, but as Joshua Rozenberg explained in the Law Society Gazette in July, he has been appointed because of his forensic skills in getting at the truth of what happened. 

“He is clearly not the touchy-feely public figure that some campaigners apparently wanted. But he strikes me as the ideal person to assimilate a huge body of technical data and explain how a simple fire led to such huge loss of life.”

Fallout from the fire continues, including the following items. 

Council cuts ties with block’s managers

Last month Kensington and Chelsea councillors voted in favour of ending the council’s contract with the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) — the body that managed Grenfell Tower. According to BuzzFeed news: 

“We are looking at all options for the future management of our housing, and we will work closely with tenants, leaseholders, residents’ associations and other groups to develop and agree a way forward,” [a council] spokesperson said. It comes after Theresa May had a private meeting with survivors and local residents last week where she confirmed that the KCTMO would be stripped of its management responsibilities for the Lancaster West estate, which includes the tower.

Slough council to take over block that failed fire test

In a move that appears to represent an intention to take public housing fire safety a lot more seriously, post-Grenfell, one local authority has signalled its intention to take over a private block of flats whose cladding has failed two separate fire inspections earlier this year. According to the BBC, Slough Council intends to take control of Nova House, a six-storey office block converted into flats, “to protect the safety of the residents”, it said.

Baby-drop story dropped

One of the most dramatic stories to emerge in the hours after the Grenfell Tower disaster was the one about a woman holding a baby out of her tenth floor flat window and then dropping it into the waiting arms of a person down below. Though reported widely at the time, it appears on further investigation by the BBC that the story “probably never happened”. It seems that: 

“neither the police nor ambulance service have a record of the event, and experts have questioned whether it is scientifically possible. No witnesses quoted at the time were willing to be interviewed on camera.”

Crime

Brady funeral shrouded in secrecy

The Times law Brief reports that the media have been barred from revealing details of the funeral arrangements of Ian Brady, the Moors murderer. Two local authorities, Oldham and Tameside councils, brought proceedings in the Chancery Division of the High Court after Brady’s own executor, solicitor Robin Makin, had failed to make proper arrangements for the disposal five months after Brady’s death. 

In his judgment in Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council v Makin (which contains redactions, is undated and does not even have a neutral citation number, but was released on 13 October 2017), Sir Geoffrey Vos, Chancellor, stated that 

  • the name of the second defendant, referred to as “X” (and apparently the person having custody of the remains of Brady’s body) should remain redacted for seven days;
  • no reference should be made to the whereabouts of the remains of the body or for any intended proposals for their disposal;
  • it was necessary and expedient for the matter to be taken out Makin’s hands if the body were to be disposed of quickly, lawfully and decently;
  • section 116 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 and the court’s inherent jurisdiction over estates allowed it in this case to give directions as to who should dispose of the body, and how; 
  • the overwhelming factor in this case was the public interest: the deceased’s wishes, though relevant, did not outweigh the need to avoid justified public indignation and actual unrest;
  • Mr Makin had not been justified in being so secretive about how he intended to dispose of the deceased’s body and had failed to give clear undertakings that he did not intend to scatter the deceased’s ashes in the areas of the applicant authorities (eg on Saddleworth Moor, where his victims had been unlawfully buried); 
  • Mr Makin could not be entrusted with the ashes for disposal, given the risk of public disorder if a member of the public sought to stop him doing what he intended with them;
  • instead, an officer of Tameside MBC would deal with the disposal, with no music and no ceremony; 
  • the playing of the fifth movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique at the cremation, as requested by Mr Makin on behalf of his client, would not be permitted, given its theme (a macabre and grotesque vision of hell) and the offence that would cause to the families of Brady’s victims. 

The whole sordid carry-on — the delay and the mystery and obscurity of intention — is rather disgusting and ghastly. Indeed, it seems as though Brady, through the execution of his funereal wishes, might be trolling his victims’ families in a vicious display of non-atonement. No wonder the judge says more than once that public anger and indignation would be “justified”.  

The release of the judgment in partially redacted form is welcome, given the public interest the case would necessarily have; but when the judgment template is still showing through, with “Double-click to add NC number” and “Double-click to add Judgment date” on its cover sheet, and every page is headed “High Court Unapproved Judgment”, you wonder how carefully the process has been managed. Worse still, the Judiciary website has put up a version that is clearly headed with a rubric saying “This draft is confidential to the parties and their legal representatives …” There is transparency, which is welcome; but this looks worryingly like something rushed out without proper checking. By the time you read this, however, the version available may have been updated.

Legal profession

Barrister babies 

Four years after launching the “first ever Bar nursery” the Bar Council has closed the scheme. 

The scheme was launched in April 2013 and was operated out of Smithfield House Children’s Nursery in Smithfield, London — just by the Old Bailey. When announcing the scheme, Maura McGowan QC, Chairman of the Bar, said:

“The Bar Council is committed to supporting parents and ensuring that the profession retains its best people. Owing to the nature of work at the Bar, many parents find it exceptionally difficult to juggle childcare responsibilities with their ever-changing work schedule, particularly those barristers who regularly appear in court, which can mean travelling to different towns every day.

However, Legal Cheek is now reporting that 

“the representative body for barristers across England and Wales has now scrapped the scheme. A spokesperson confirmed that Smithfield House — which also accepts the children of non-barristers — was now operating at full capacity, so the Bar Council had agreed to “discontinue the partnership going forward”.

A similar scheme running in Leeds remains unaffected by the closure of the London nursery. But it had been hoped there would be more such facilities, and that once opened they would stay open. Not a good day for promoting family life at the Bar —  and with the looming threat of flexible operating hours, the timing could not be worse. 

Baby barristers

The Bar Standards Board has launched a consultation (until 8 January 2018) on the future role of the Inns of Court in conferring on barristers the qualification to practise. The Inns are currently responsible for the training of barristers, including the provision of “qualifying sessions” and the “calling to the bar” of new barristers, as well as the supervision of students’ conduct. 

They also provide dinner: we have written about this (and the threat to it) in an earlier post: Ways into law: Dining in hall — tradition or torment?

The consultation paper acknowledges that: 

“The Inns provide a number of benefits to students by introducing them to life at the Bar and opportunities to network with other aspiring (and practising) barristers. This can be a particular benefit to those who come from a background that means they lack the confidence or social capital to enter the profession without significant support and mentoring.” 

It points out that the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA) “clearly enshrines the role of the Inns of Court as the bodies responsible for call to the Bar” and states that “We have no desire to change the Inns’ statutory role in call to the Bar”. But, it says, “they also perform a number of additional roles within our regulatory arrangements at present which we need to review…” One of the more radical questions is it asking is whether membership of an Inn should be compulsory.

“As the only statutory requirement regarding the Inns is for them to call students to the Bar, we need to consider whether student and/or post-qualification membership of an Inn needs to remain mandatory and prescribed by us.”

Not everyone will be happy about that. 

To be fair to the BSB, reading the consultation does not give one the impression that they want to sweep the whole traditional edifice away; it just comes across as a very earnest and diligent audit of the whole process, which could well result in things remaining much the same. But if we are to keep these roles and traditions, or modify them only slightly, it should be on the basis of a confident assurance that the matter has been properly examined. So whilst the questions asked might seem to contemplate blue-sky iconoclasm, it would probably be wise for the Bar and anyone else interested in legal education to engage with the consultation and let the BSB know what they think. 

A spokesman for the Bar Council told the Law Society Gazette: 

“the consultation included ‘significant proposals for change’ and that the council would be putting together a working group specifically to look at the consultation and shape the response to it.

‘However, we would encourage chambers, individual members of the bar, specialist bar associations and the circuits to give consideration to these proposals, which may will have a major impact on the training of barristers,’ the spokesperson added.”

Law (and injustice) from around the world

Australia

An unsent text message found on a dead man’s mobile phone has been accepted by a court in Brisbane as an effective will under Queensland law. According to the BBC, 

“The 55-year-old man had composed a text message addressed to his brother, in which he gave “all that I have” to his brother and nephew. The message was found in the drafts folder on the man’s phone after he took his own life last year.”

We hope to have a case comment on this story in due course, so keep an eye on the Commentary section of the ICLR blog. 

Brazil 

In a ruling that has sparked widespread outrage and raised fears of a conservative backlash, a Brazilian judge last month approved gay “conversion therapy” in an action brought by Rozangela Justino, an evangelical Christian and psychologist whose licence was revoked in 2016 after she offered “conversion therapy”. According to the Guardian, 

“Waldemar de Carvalho, a federal judge in the capital of Brasília, overruled a 1999 decision by the Federal Council of Psychology that forbade psychologists from offering widely discredited treatments which claims to “cure” gay people.” 

“The Federal Council of Psychology said in a statement that the decision “opens the dangerous possibility of the use of sexual reversion therapies” and promised to contest it legally.”

The “gay rehab” ruling was criticised on Twitter under the hashtag #curegay: as one tweeter put it: 

https://twitter.com/ubimalanconi/status/910115280847859712

India

The Supreme Court of India, by a 3–2 majority, has banned “Talaq”, the Muslim practice of instant divorce, as unconstitutional and un-Islamic. According to the BBC, 

India is one of a handful of countries where a Muslim man can divorce his wife in minutes by saying the word talaq (divorce) three times.

The landmark court decision came in response to petitions challenging the so-called “triple talaq” custom. The cases were filed by five Muslim women who had been divorced in this way and two rights groups.

It seems wills are not the only legally effective procedure that can now be done via text, or indeed social media: 

There have been cases in which Muslim men in India have divorced their wives by issuing the so-called triple talaq by letter, telephone and, increasingly, by text message, WhatsApp and Skype.

 

 

That’s it for now. Thanks for all your tweets, many of which provide source material for which we are very grateful. We’ll try to plug all our borrowings. If you like the blog, you can sign up below for email alerts. 

This post was written by Paul Magrath, ICLR blog editor, and does not necessarily represent the views of ICLR as an organisation. 

Featured image of the City of London by Lukasz Pajor via Shutterstock.