A Lawyer Writes

This blog focuses on updates and changes in the law. While it is a fresh initiative, the writer brings over 35 years of experience in covering, clarifying, and analyzing legal news.

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A busy day

1 week ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

Lots to report this morning as courts clear the decks ahead of the Easter break. When parliament used the terms “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act 2010, it was referring to biological sex, not acquired gender. That’s what the UK Supreme Court decided yesterday in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers. And that’s just about all it decided.
Supreme rulings

1 week ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

Is a person with a full gender recognition certificate recognising the holder’s gender as female a “woman” for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010? That’s the question five justices of the UK Supreme Court will attempt to answer this morning when they rule on an appeal by a campaign group called For Women Scotland against an interpretation of Scottish legislation, intended to increase the proportion of women on the boards of Scottish public bodies, that has been upheld in the Scottish courts.
Ukraine v Russia

1 week ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

Russia has been asked by the European Court of Human Rights to respond to allegations that it was responsible for 24 political assassinations or attempted assassinations between 2003 and 2020. They include the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 and the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018. Other victims named in a include the opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, both of whom were targeted within Russia.
Time to move on

2 weeks ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

Patrick Allen is to retire in September from Hodge Jones & Allen, the “personal client” law firm he co-founded 48 years ago and has run since 1977. That was the year in which Allen qualified as a solicitor. Eight months earlier, he joined forces with Henry Hodge and Peter Jones to create a new firm, which first operated from offices above a tailor’s shop on Camden High Street, London. A bank manager who gave each of them a start-up loan was among their early clients.
‘We act for Hamas’

2 weeks ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

The application by lawyers for Hamas to have its name taken off the UK’s list of banned terrorist organisations is the latest example of lawfare — the use of law as a weapon of war. That’s the introduction to my column for the Telegraph, which you can read online. The newspaper has helpfully added some hyperlinks.
The enforcers

2 weeks ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

Unpaid judgments delivered by all civil courts in England and Wales should be enforced by a new unified digital court, according to the Civil Justice Council. The council, whose primary role is to give advice on civil matters to the lord chancellor, the judiciary and the civil procedure rule committee, made its recommendation in a report published yesterday. “The current system of enforcement, divided between the High Court and the county court, is not working as it should,” the report says.
Knight challenges Lords

2 weeks ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

The business executive Sir Philip Green will learn today whether he was denied his human rights when he was accused in the House of Lords in 2018 of “using non-disclosure agreements and substantial payments to conceal the truth about serious and repeated sexual harassment, racist abuse and bullying which is compulsively continuing”.
Disappointed judges

3 weeks ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

A senior appeal judge has expressed “deep disappointment” at the government’s failure to digitise the civil justice system of England and Wales during the course of an eight-year reform programme that ended last week. Sir Peter Coulson, who sits in the Court of Appeal as Lord Justice Coulson, added that potentially valid claims were being put at risk by the failings of HM Courts and Tribunals Service, an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice.
Policy or process?

3 weeks ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

Are pre-sentence reports part of the judicial sentencing process? Or is their deployment a question of policy for ministers and ultimately for parliament? It’s a question that has divided the judiciary and the executive over the past couple of weeks, upsetting the delicate balance between the major institutions of the state. What long-term effect has the dispute had on our constitutional arrangements? Has it damaged the long-term trust on which the system depends?
Attorney defends judges

3 weeks ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

It is entirely unacceptable for MPs to attack judges on a personal basis, the attorney general said yesterday. Lord Hermer KC was giving evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the day after two Conservative MPs had called for senior judges to be disciplined by politicians.