Law in Practice

asks Catherine Heard, Head of Policy at Fair Trials International

Sir Scott Baker’s year-long review of the UK’s extradition arrangements reported on 18th October. The press coverage of its findings focused on the difficult case of Gary McKinnon and on the report’s clean bill of health for the UK-US extradition treaty - findings that understandably disappointed campaigners wanting a renegotiation of our extradition treaty with the United States.  

Dr Fiona Leverick discusses the role of the UK’s Supreme Court in Scottish criminal matters

The recent judgments of the United Kingdom Supreme Court in Cadder v HM Advocate [2010] UKSC 43 and Fraser v HM Advocate [2011] UKSC 24 have whipped up something of a storm in Scotland. In Cadder, the Supreme Court (“SC”) overturned a decision of seven judges of the Scottish High Court of Justiciary (“HCJ”) and held that the use at trial of admissions made by a suspect who had not been offered legal assistance violated his right to a fair trial under art 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”). In Fraser, the SC quashed the conviction of the defendant on the basis that he had been denied a fair trial due to the non-disclosure of information by the Crown. His appeal had been unanimously refused by the HCJ. 

They have arrived in the Supreme Court. The Government proposes  allowing them in for sentencing. Has the time come for cameras to be allowed into all of our courts? 

Here Simon Bucks puts the case for cameras, and Jon McLeod the case against… 

What is a media monopoly in this country and how did Rupert Murdoch get permission to buy the rest of BSkyB? Matthew Cook examines competition law in respect of media ownership

Amid the present controversy over hacking at the News of the World, concerns have once again come to the fore about the size and role of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and the power that this gives him over British politicians and the British public.  The position is very different from a few months ago when it looked likely that News International would be given permission to extend its media empire in the United Kingdom still further by acquiring the rest of BSkyB (in which it presently has a 39.1% minority interest), subject only to a condition that it should dispose of Sky News. 

A media storm followed the conviction of Levi Bellfield for the murder of Milly Dowler. Ali Naseem Bajwa QC examines the fallout from the case

The medieval practice of determining guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused to trial by ordeal has happily long since passed. However, following the conviction of Levi Bellfield for the murder of Milly Dowler, the victim’s family described their experience of the trial as an ordeal and said that they had paid “too high a price” for the conviction. In the ensuing media and, inevitable, political storm the Criminal Justice System came in for intense criticism, much of it centred on a claim that the trial process is balanced unfairly in favour of the rights of the accused over the rights of victims of crime and witnesses. 

Recent events surrounding News International and the phone hacking  scandal raise questions about the future of the Press Complaints Commission. Desmond Browne QC investigates

Never can the press have shown so much interest in its own affairs as when examining where responsibility lies for the phone-hacking which took place at the now-defunct News of the World. Not only has this inevitably raised questions about corporate governance at News International, it has also led to the reading of the obsequies over the Press Complaints Commission (“PCC”). Typical was the contribution from the former Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw MP, in his Gareth Williams Memorial Lecture in July: “The PCC’s failure, not least in the face of the hacking scandal, has been abject. Its obituaries have now been pronounced, from across the political spectrum. All we await is the last rites”. 

Following details of his private life being splashed across the newspapers, Max Mosley brought a successful privacy action against News Group Newspapers Ltd in 2008.

He then complained to the European Court of Human Rights about the lack of any legal requirement in the UK for the press to notify an individual before publishing details about his or her private life. Here he explains why 

In the light of the News of the World phone hacking saga Sarah Lewis and Yousif Elagab examine the difficult legal issues now surrounding voicemail hacking and breaches of privacy

The demise of the News of the World has blown the phone hacking saga wide open.  The seemingly endless revelations of investigative techniques, without conscience or legitimate purpose, have embroiled not only the media and celebrities but the police, the CPS and Parliament, in particular the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. 

Super-injunctions: now we know what they are, where do we go from here?

On 24 February last year the Commons Committee on Culture, Media and Sport published their report on Press Standards, expressing concern at the confusion which had become apparent the previous autumn over what protection was afforded to reports of Parliamentary proceedings, when there had been disclosure of information otherwise protected by an injunction. 

The coroner’s inquest into the London Bombings of 7 July 2005 is over. Max Hill QC,who represented the Metropolitan Police throughout, gives a firsthand account

“We are here today to resume the inquests into the deaths of the 52 innocent people who were killed as a result of the bombs in London on 7 July 2005. I should like to take a moment to remember them individually. Mr Keith will read out each of their names and then I shall ask all of us who can stand to do so for a minute’s silence in their memory.”