Three questions needing satisfactory answers
Law and Rights

Three questions needing satisfactory answers


1.  Why should lawyers continue to offer pro bono work as a means of covering up the fault-lines in government lack of legal aid policy?

Steve Cornforth blog - Who needs legal aid when lawyers do it for free?




2.  After two failed attempts (Butler-Sloss / Woolf), the Home Secretary's attempts to find a suitable chair for the child abuse inquiry continue.  Would it not be preferable to scrap the present inquiry, start again with proper terms of reference for an inquiry with much sharper focus and with adequate powers to investigate and also proper safeguards for witnesses?

Here is a view as to why the present inquiry is heading for disaster - Matthew Scott's view on Barrister Blog

BBC 3rd November 2014 - Teresa May 'sorry' for two child abuse inquiry resignations


3.  Why should fundamental rights be by the grace and favour of government?

Institute of Race Relations - Human rights at the government's discretion

I am not expecting satisfactory answers any time soon !!

See also:

Law and Lawyers 6th October - Human Rights - a look at the Conservative Party proposals

Head of Legal Blog 29th October  - Dinah Rose QC: The Conservative human rights paper is "just so rubbish"




- New Independent Panel Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse With New Chair
The Honourable Justice Goddard has been appointed by the Home Secretary to chair the Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.  Justice Goddard is a Justice of the High Court of New Zealand. See the Home Secretary's Statement to the...

- Litvinenko - A Public Inquiry To Be Held Under The Inquries Act 2005
On 22nd July, the Home Secretary decided that there should be an inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 into the death, in 2006, of Alexander Litvinenko - (BBC News 22nd July).  As a result, the inquest first established in 2006 has been suspended...

- Brief Notes On The Azelle Rodney Inquiry
Update 31st July 2014 - The former Police Officer, referred to as E7, has been charged with the murder of Azelle Rodney.  See the Crown Prosecution Service announcement on this. In April 2005, Azelle Rodney (then aged 24) was shot by the Metropolitan...

- Judges And Inquiries
From time-to-time the use of Judges to chair inquiries has been criticised but their use has continued.  Writing in The Times (17th June - "The high price to be paid if judges examine our historical events") Lord Pannick QC points out that Ministers...

- So, Was The War Lawful?
The Head of Legal blog argues that the Iraq War of 2003 was lawful. I have put my own, admittedly non-expert, view on that excellent blog which is to the effect that the trail of UN Security Council Resolutions from Resolution 660 (2nd August 1990) to...



Law and Rights








.