The Defence Brief

Lord Chief Justice wants to see court hearings in pubs As Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas is the most senior judge in the country (I’m not entirely sure how that is the case since he sits in the Court of Appeal and you’d think the President of the Supreme Court would be the boss, but clearly that’s the hierarchical mess you’re left with when you appoint non-judges to the role of Lord Chancellor) and he wants to modernise the justice system.  Lord Thomas has come up with the bright idea of judges pitching up in pubs, town halls and hotels to hear cases – I doubt it’s all his idea, I suspect that o ne of the 24% of alcoholic lawyers in practice may have guided him .  In fact, I’m sure I’ve heard this idea before but last time it was the Ministry of Justice who were  planning to open courts in shopping centres .  I must admit that I quite like the idea of a pint during trials, would make things flow well.  Could bring back smoking too, I know we’re n...

I have just read this story on the BBC website. I don't practice immigration law and have never studied it at any level, I also know nothing about the original case that led to Amy Houston's death.  But the case does show the difficult decisions faced by judges every day as much as it shows the inadequacies of the current system. First, the judges.  They were, in effect, being asked to chose whether to throw a criminal out of the country and thus deprive his children of their father or allow him to stay and cause hurt to Mr Houston.  It's not a decision that I would have liked to have taken. Turning to the system.  Could the system have avoided placing Mr Houston and Ibrahim's wife and young children in this position?  Well, yes it could have done easily by hearing this case in a timely fashion in 2003 while Ibrahim was still serving his four-month sentence.  Given that the authorities were seeking his removal from the UK, I wonder whether at that ti...