If you have ever wondered about the need to update and modernise legislation, compare this:The Wills Act 1837, passed in the first year of Queen Victoria’s reignwith this:Clause 1 of the Law Commission’s draft billThe Wills Act 1837, though amended by subsequent legislation, is still law in England and Wales. Its interpretation relies
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Not just a ‘get Putin’ court
Nobody was surprised that President Putin failed to show up in Istanbul yesterday for peace talks with President Zelensky — except, perhaps, President Trump, who seemed to think the force of his personality could end the war in Ukraine. “Nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together,” he said yesterday.Council of…
Curtailing jury trial
Offenders serving between one and four years who have been released from prison on licence and then recalled for breaching their licence conditions will generally be freed after a further 28 days, the justice secretary announced yesterday. At present, release is a matter for the Parole Board.It’s the latest attempt by Shabana Mahmood to…
Judicial diplomacy
“The independent judiciary — the cornerstone of the rule of law — is an integral part of what the UK has to offer to the world,” the lady chief justice of England and Wales said last night.Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill was addressing a court-full of senior judges and international visitors about the judiciary’s new five-year…
Closing the impunity gap
Islamic State fighters who made their way back to the UK should face prosecution, a parliamentary committee recommends in a report published this morning.MPs and peers from parliament’s joint committee on human rights say the government should close the “impunity gap” by allowing UK courts to exercise universal jurisdiction over defendants accused of committing…
ICC prosecutor denies rape
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was questioned by United Nations investigators late last week about allegations of rape, a respected US newspaper reported yesterday.Lawyers for Karim Khan KC had said it was “categorically untrue that he has engaged in sexual misconduct of any kind”, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) added.While…
New law commissioners
There will be just one man among the government’s five independent law reform advisers by September. Until a couple of years ago, supporters of diversity complained ruefully that there were more members of the Law Commission for England and Wales called “Nick” — three out of five — than women.The commission, which is celebrating its…
Constitutional reform
A former lord chancellor who served in Tony Blair’s Labour government has described Donald Trump’s “refusal to obey court orders” and his “unleashing” of “political vituperation” on judges who made them as “wrong and very, very dangerous”.Lord Falconer of Thoroton speaking at Middle Temple this weekLord Falconer of Thoroton, a cabinet minister…
Terry Etherton
Lord Etherton GBE, a distinguished appeal judge and master of the rolls from 2016 until his retirement at the beginning of 2021, died last night. He was 73.Sir Terence Etherton at the unveiling of a new portrait for Gray’s Inn by Keith Breeden RP, 7 October 2019 (photograph: Christopher Russell)Announcing his death, the lady…
In the dock
Plans to make offenders attend court for sentencing have been modified after critics suggested they would prove ineffective.Old plansIn November 2023, the Conservative home secretary James Cleverly published a criminal justice bill dealing with the issue. Clause 22 would have added two provisions to the sentencing code, passed by parliament as the Sentencing Act 2020.The…