Last year I wrote about the UK's Crown Prosecuting Service and a review into the competency of CPS advocates.This year, the Legal Services Commission — the Poms' equivalent to our legal aid — is running a pilot scheme trialling a quality assurance scheme for advocates.The discussion paper discusses what the LSC wants to do and …
Continue reading UK’s Legal Services Commission advocates checked for quality
Last year Elucubrator posted on the expansion of the powers of judicial registrars.The full list of matters that they may deal with are contained at rule 4 of the Magistrates' Court (Judicial Registrars) Rules 2005. The problem with that rule is that it contains a long list of section numbers, and references to many different …
Defence practitioners have sometimes found all their efforts to cast doubt on the occurrence of an offence washed away in a contest by s 55 of the Magistrates' Court Act 1989. This provision allowed a Court, if not satisfied of the indictable offence charged, to find in the alternative an offence of attempting to commit …
The judgment of Maxwell P and Buchanan JA in R v Ververis & Ververis restates many familiar principles of sentencing. One that I was unaware of is that incompetent or flawed attempts to manufacture illicit drugs may be considered less serious than efforts with better prospects for success.There's logic to it. Offences under s 71AA, …
The judgment of Maxwell P and Buchanan JA in R v Ververis & Ververis restates many familiar principles of sentencing. One that I was unaware of is that incompetent or flawed attempts to manufacture illicit drugs may be considered less serious than efforts with better prospects for success.There's logic to it. Offences under s 71AA, …