Month: June 2018

I’m a Remainer but I’m not campaigning for a second referendum

Last Saturday something like 100,000 people marched through Westminster demanding a second referndum on any final Brexit deal. The “People’s Vote” petition has gathered what, at present, seems a fairly modest number of 145,000 signatures at the time of writing, asking for the same thing. According to the Petition:

“The future of this country and young people is too important to be decided by politicians alone, who cannot unite around the national interest.”

It is a mirror image of the argument that “politicians alone” should not have decided on our continued membership of the EU; a populist, anti-representative-democracy, argument that led directly to the 2016 referendum. Continue reading “I’m a Remainer but I’m not campaigning for a second referendum”

Rumpole, 17, and the Codes of Practice

We learnt yesterday from a paralegal called Rob (known on twitter as @RobEdward90) that a 17 year old boy has been told by the Legal Aid Agency that he will not be given legal aid to contest his trial on charges of driving whilst disqualified. The first reason for the decision is that “there is no reason why the applicant would be unable to cross-examine police officers in person.” The youth in question is, as the cliché goes, no stranger to the criminal courts and indeed is currently the subject of a Youth Rehabilitation Order.

We don’t know his name, but given his familiarity with the criminal courts and his evident skill in advocacy we can call him Rumpole.

*** *** ***

“Rumpole!”

I turned over and pulled the duvet further over my head. Continue reading “Rumpole, 17, and the Codes of Practice”

Lessons from the Leighton Buzzard vigilantes

One of the great virtues – as well as one of the dangers – of trial by jury is that jurors are able to to take a broader view of justice than a strict interpretation of the law always dictates. The constitutional right of any jury to blow a raspberry at what they consider to be an improper prosecution is a formidable guarantee against state oppression that justifies the occasional perverse acquittal. Older readers will recall that jurors exercised such a right in the teeth of the evidence that Clive Ponting had breached the Official Secrets Act; and – rather less defensibly – to acquit Michael Randle and Pat Pottle of helping the Soviet spy George Blake escape from Wormwood Scrubs gaol, despite the defendants having written a book explaining in considerable detail exactly how they managed it. Continue reading “Lessons from the Leighton Buzzard vigilantes”

Rape juries: Jolyon Maugham hits the wrong target

Last month Britain’s favourite tax barrister, Jolyon Maugham QC, suggested in an article in the New Statesman that juries ought to be abolished for rape trials. I had meant to reply to him much earlier, but did not have the time to do so until now.

As he is in some ways a stickler for accuracy I should quote him:

“These few hundred words are not the place to remake the system by which rape is deterred. But we might start by asking, as Julie Bindel has urged, whether trial by jury serves the public interest in rape cases.”

I don’t think he is quite advocating the abolition of juries for rape cases, but he is certainly suggesting that it is something that should be discussed. Indeed, trial by jury, he says, is the place to start.

He was immediately criticised by some criminal lawyers for stepping outside his area of expertise. Not by me though; not least because my limited expertise as a criminal lawyer has never stopped me offering my thoughts on any number of other subjects, some of which are only vaguely related to the law (I can’t help you with tax avoidance though). Mr Maugham’s insights into what is undoubtedly a thorny area should be entirely welcome. Continue reading “Rape juries: Jolyon Maugham hits the wrong target”