Reviews

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States who has changed the course of legal history in America and inspired generations of lawyers by her indomitable spirit. Paul Magrath reviews a film which charts the events in her life leading up to her first major court triumph in the continuing struggle against sex discrimination.… Continue reading

Sarah Phillimore welcomes a new edition of a text book on child protection law now aimed at a wider readership that includes parents as well as professionals, while doubting how much lay readers will really benefit from it in a system still loaded against public understanding. … Continue reading

The latest novel to chart the career of Peter Murphy’s increasingly successful young criminal barrister Ben Schroeder combines the horribly contemporary issue of historic sexual abuse with a gripping courtroom drama in which the laws of evidence and the interests of national security are in play, set during the murky political era of the early 1970s.… Continue reading

The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA) is the latest step in bringing the hitherto unknown surveillance activities of the State into the light and under statutory control through ‘world-leading oversight’, or — depending on your point of view — the “the most intrusive surveillance regime of any democracy” that legitimises the surveillance State. (The former was how then Home Secretary Amber Rudd described it in a departmental press release; the latter was the reaction of the human rights campaign group, Liberty.)… Continue reading

ITV was given unprecedented access to the workings of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) but the resulting documentary was long on sentiment and rather short on legal explanation, reports Paul Magrath… Continue reading

Elanor Dymott used to work for ICLR as a law reporter. Then she became a novelist. Silver and Salt is her second book and makes excellent holiday reading for the long vacation, as Paul Magrath finds out.… Continue reading