Legislation

ACCESS to justice is at risk as the Government ploughs on with its reckless approach to Best Value Tendering said the Law Society, the Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association as they submitted their responses to the Legal Services Commission's consultation paper on Best Value Tendering (BVT) for certain legal aid services. The Law Society, the Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association are all gravely concerned about BVT as currently proposed by the LSC. 

The consultation paper was issued in March 2009, and proposes a limited BVT scheme which would cover lower crime work in police stations and the Magistrates' Courts. This would probably be extended should it prove successful. 

IN June the Commission issued a Communication setting out what it would like to see the EU prioritise over the next 5 years across the breadth of activity in the Justice Liberty and Security fields. The European institutions will now debate the draft, leading to the definitive adoption of the work programme in Stockholm at the end of the Swedish Council Presidency in December. The Commission will follow this with an Action Plan in 2010, setting out detailed, prioritised, and timetabled plans to implement the programme. The Communication reveals some potentially far-reaching and controversial ideas across the range of JLS activities, including in both the criminal and civil law fields: 

http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/barrot/archive/Programme%20Stockholm-%20EN-%20COM%202009-262.pdf 

Desmond Browne QC pays tribute to the people involved in drafting the Bar’s consultation paper responses 

The Chair of the Bar Standards Board , Baroness Ruth Deech, talks of the need to take a scrupulous approach when considering barristers’ involvement in new legal structures. The Legal Services Act 2007 allows for different types of lawyer and non-lawyer to form businesses together. It also permits non-lawyers to be involved in the management or ownership of businesses that provide legal services.
Although the Bar Standards Board is keen to embrace these new dimensions, it believes this should be preceded by careful analysis of the issues raised in the responses to its second consultation paper related to the Legal Services Act. 

Commenting on the issue, Baroness Deech said: "At the heart of the BSB lies the task of guaranteeing the quality of legal services to the client. Our work on new legal structures has been dominated by ensuring that whatever new forms legal practice may take, the client will still get independent quality advice at fair cost. The BSB has been spending much time closely analysing the responses received to its second consultation related to the Legal Services Act. 

The long-awaited proposal for an EU regulation on jurisdiction and applicable law in the field of succession and wills is now expected to be adopted by the Commission in mid-October. The Spanish EU Presidency intends to treat it as a priority in early 2010. 

The task of providing “independent quality advice” must take centre stage in any decisions on barristers’ involvement in new legal structures under the Legal Services Act 2007.

In Case C-243/08 the ECJ held that in the area of consumer protection, national courts are not limited merely to ruling on the possible unfairness of a contractual term, but must also themselves examine that issue, where requisite legal and factual elements are available to them to do so. 

See: http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=EN&Submit=rechercher&numaff=C-243/08 

Baroness Scotland scored a number of firsts simply in becoming Attorney General. In office she has taken an unprecedented lead in ensuring that those who represent the Crown are as diverse as the Bar and in encouraging the Bar to be as diverse as the people it represents, finds David Wurtzel 

The Bar Council and the Law Society have joined forces to warn access to justice is at risk if the government “ploughs on with its reckless approach” to best value tendering (“BVT”). 

The recent reforms in the area of fraud and financial crime amount to little more than re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, writes Jonathan Fisher QC. More radical reform to the statutory framework is required