Tag: Max Hill

Secret Barrister Set To Become Special Tribunal Judge

The leaked news that the Secret Barrister, who recently published the critically acclaimed The law and how it’s broken, has been appointed as a Special Tribunal Judge has come as a surprise to his or her many fans.

The Special Tribunal is a little-publicised court that sits in private at undisclosed locations, including, according to some unconfirmed rumours, the Cold War nuclear bunker inside Box railway tunnel in Wiltshire.

Box Bunker

Created by the anodyne sounding Court Publicity (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2015 under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, a Special Tribunal can be convened, according to Paragraph 1 of Schedule 4, whenever the Minister of Justice certifies that a secret court hearing is necessary:

“in the interests of national security, maintaining public confidence in the justice system or when for any other reason the Minister believes a closed hearing would be expedient in the interests of justice.” Continue reading “Secret Barrister Set To Become Special Tribunal Judge”

The sad story of Simon Spence and Max Hill

Simon Spence QC

Many, many years ago I shared a flat in a high rise block somewhere East of Richmond and West of Sheen. My only flatmate was a then rising star of the bar, Simon Spence. I can’t even remember how we were thrown together. Probably I rang a telephone number on the Inner Temple noticeboard, Simon interviewed me, satisfied himself that I didn’t have untreatable halitosis and offered me his spare room. We didn’t see much of each other after that: he was a silver-tongued advocate, already greatly sought after by bling-flashing Essex armed robbers, whilst I was trying to eke out a living from the less glamorous but at least endlessly renewable resource of Swindon alcoholics.

Sadly, and through no fault of his, Simon’s flat was not for me. After 6 weeks or so of a rather lonely life I decided – I am sure it was by mutual agreement – that my experiment in high rise living was over and I moved out. Since then I don’t think I have come across my former flat-mate at all, although I have followed his steady rise to the ranks of Queen’s Counsel with interest and just a little of that envy that all ordinary barristers have when their student contemporaries take silk or become grand judges.

Continue reading “The sad story of Simon Spence and Max Hill”