"Does judicial review strike the right balance between enabling citizens to challenge the lawfulness of government action and allowing the executive and local authorities to carry on the business of government?"

The Independent Review of Administrative Law (IRAL) has put out a call for evidence. YLAL considers it to be vital that evidence from junior claimant public law legal aid practitioners is considered by the panel.

YLAL will therefore be submitting a response to the IRAL panel. We are hosting a virtual roundtable to help source ideas and collate evidence from the legal aid frontline.

Participants in the roundtable will include:

• Georgia Banks, Duncan Lewis
• Jessie Brennan, Bindmans
• Miranda Butler, Garden Court Chambers
• Oliver Carter, Irwin Mitchell
• Lois Clifton, Simpson Millar
• Clare Duffy, Doughty Street Chambers
• Eleri Griffiths, Watkins & Gunn
• Claire Hall, Child Poverty Action Group
• Mira Hammad, Garden Court North
• Josie Hicklin, Greater Manchester Law Centre
• Jessica Jones, Matrix Chambers
• Rebecca Kingi, ATLEU and YLAL Committee
• Rowan Smith, Leigh Day
• Robyn Taylor, Deighton Pierce Glynn

The roundtable will be chaired by Siobhan Taylor-Ward of Merseyside Law Centre and YLAL Committee. We are grateful to 1 Pump Court for hosting.

The roundtable will be a #YLALVirtual and open to anyone to attend and contribute through the chat box. If you would like to attend, please register for a ticket via Eventbrite and we will send you a Zoom link on the day.

Find out more about this event here.

Second in the series of JUSTICE members-only webinar series titled ‘Career Conversations’. Over the course of this series you will have the opportunity to hear from a range of excellent speakers from the JUSTICE membership, sharing their various paths into and through the law.

On Thursday 24 September Thalia Maragh is welcomed as the speaker.

Thalia Maragh was called to the Jamaican Bar in 1999 where she maintained a mixed criminal and civil liberties practice at the private bar. She defended in cases ranging from murder, firearm offences and sexual offences. Thalia also worked as the staff attorney for The Independent Jamaican Council for Human Rights (a Jamaican based human rights NGO) from 2005/6 before pursuing an LLM in international crime and human rights at King’s College London. In 2009 she was called to the Bar in the England and Wales, and later in 2017 in the Turks and Caicos Islands. She worked at Birnberg Peirce and Partners before transferring to the Bar in 2009.

This is a JUSTICE-members only event...good news is that students only need to pay £15 for student membership! Find out more about the benefits of this.

Find out more about this event here.

Gresham College Lecture

Speaker: Professor Sir Geoffrey Nice QC

2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre and the Dayton Accords resolution of the first two (Croatia and Bosnia) of the three Balkan wars of the 1990s. 

In examining the legacy of this conflict, Professor Nice will consider documents newly-released by the UK and US governments. 

Did the UK and US know what was coming and fail to act? Was the massacre the result of cold blooded politics that was never acknowledged?

Find out more about this event here.

This lecture will focus on human rights and the wrongs of unexpected and/or sudden deaths in which the state is implicated. 

It will cover the importance of a proper death investigation, the impact on the family and state, how Magna Carta influences death investigations 800 years on, and current trends and statistics in state deaths. 

How does the state show it cares when deaths occur? Does the state learn lessons? How can the bereaved move on?

Professor Leslie Thomas QC is the current Gresham Professor of Law and will be doing a series of 6 lectures over the coming year.

Find out more about this event here.

Bookings are open for the Legal Cheek Virtual Pupillage Fair on Saturday 3 October.

The fair features barristers and pupillage committees from the nation's leading chambers.

Each participating chambers has a branded virtual booth with a livestream that allows students to join in video chats with lawyers, graduate recruitment experts and trainees. Students can also submit written questions in the live chats and browse custom chambers content. Meanwhile, there is an option to replace your video livestream with static video content for periods during the pupillage fair.

The booths are located within a virtual expo hall, which students can wander through, visiting the various booths.

During the law fair students can join separate 30-minute long themed workshops by different chambers taking place at scheduled times during the course of the event.

Find out more about this event here.

One in a wonderful series of JUSTICE members-only webinars titled ‘Career Conversations’. Over the course of this series you will have the opportunity to hear from a range of excellent speakers from the JUSTICE membership, sharing their various paths into and through the law.

Walter Merricks CBE has been a member of the JUSTICE board since 2009, and chair since 2016.  He is also chair of IMPRESS: the independent monitor for the press, proposed class representative in a collective action claim against MasterCard, and a member of the Civil Aviation Authority’s Consumer Panel. After qualifying as a solicitor, he became successively the founding director of Camden Community Law Centre, a lecturer in law at Brunel University and a journalist on the New Law Journal. He served as policy and communications director of the Law Society of England and Wales, then becoming Insurance Ombudsman and subsequently inaugural Chief Ombudsman of the Financial Ombudsman Service. He recently served on the board of the Gambling Commission. He was a member of the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure (1981), the Fraud Trials Committee (1986), and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (2002-08).

This is a JUSTICE-members only event...good news is that students only need to pay £15 for student membership! Find out more about the benefits of this.

Find out more about this event here.

The Howard League for Penal Reform is holding two In Conversation events during the month of October.

The criminal justice system faces huge challenges as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Prisons imposed unprecedented restrictions to regimes in order to prevent the spread of the virus. Courts face a mounting backlog of cases and the government has introduced controversial extensions to custody time limits so that individuals not yet convicted of crimes will spend longer in prison on remand. A reunified probation service will seek to make an impact as the government’s reform proposals are taken forward.

The Howard League’s Chief Executive, Frances Crook, will discuss these and other issues over two evenings with Lyn Brown MP, the Labour Party’s Shadow Minister for Prisons and Probation, and with Sir Bob Neill MP, Conservative MP and chair of the Justice Select Committee.

Lyn Brown MP

Before her election as Member of Parliament for West Ham in 2005, Lyn had a long career in local government. In 1988, Lyn was elected as a local councillor in the London Borough of Newham and she continued to sit on Newham Council until her election as Member of Parliament. Lyn held several senior political roles at the LGA and London Councils, leading on Culture for both organisations.

Since 2006, Lyn has held Ministerial and Shadow Ministerial roles, including Assistant Government Whip, Opposition Whip, Shadow Fire Minister, Shadow Policing Minister, and Shadow Treasury Minister with responsibility for Social Justice. Since April 2020, Lyn has been Shadow Prisons and Probation Minister in Labour’s Shadow Justice team.

In her spare time Lyn is a voracious reader of fiction. She organises a book club for women Labour MPs, and, because of her particular interest in crime fiction, is on the judging panel of the 2020 Golden Dagger awards.

Find out more about this event here.

The Howard League for Penal Reform is holding two In Conversation events during the month of October.

The criminal justice system faces huge challenges as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Prisons imposed unprecedented restrictions to regimes in order to prevent the spread of the virus. Courts face a mounting backlog of cases and the government has introduced controversial extensions to custody time limits so that individuals not yet convicted of crimes will spend longer in prison on remand. A reunified probation service will seek to make an impact as the government’s reform proposals are taken forward.

The Howard League’s Chief Executive, Frances Crook, will discuss these and other issues over two evenings with Lyn Brown MP, the Labour Party’s Shadow Minister for Prisons and Probation, and with Sir Bob Neill MP, Conservative MP and chair of the Justice Select Committee.

Get involved by registering for these events and downloading the Howard League’s new events app, which will allow you to submit questions to our speakers in advance. Attendees will be able to network with each other via the app, which shall also provide access to information on future Howard League events, both for this In Conversation series and for our forthcoming conferences and lectures.

Sir Bob Neill MP

Bob Neill was educated at Abbs Cross Grammar School, Hornchurch. He went on to study Law at the London School of Economics, which led to a successful career as a barrister specialising in criminal law.

Bob was elected as the Member of Parliament for Bromley & Chislehurst in June 2006, following the sudden death of The Rt. Hon. Eric Forth. Shortly after entering Parliament, Bob served on the Justice Select Committee and was appointed as the Shadow London Minister, joining the Shadow Communities & Local Government team. In 2008 he was made Shadow Local Government Minister and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. In January 2009, Bob also took over the shadow planning brief.

In May 2010, Bob was elected for a second term as MP for Bromley & Chislehurst.  He served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Communities and Local Government until September 2012, with responsibilities for the Fire Service, Thames Gateway, the Olympics, local government and planning. In September 2012, he was made Vice Chairman of the Conservative party for Local Government.

Bob was re-elected for a third term in May 2015, shortly afterwards being elected on a cross-party basis as Chairman of the Justice Select Committee. Following the General Election on 8 June 2017, he was returned unopposed to this role.

Bob was re-elected as the MP for Bromley and Chislehurst with an increased majority in the December 2019 General Election, and in the New Year Honours list published shortly afterwards, was knighted for political service.

Bob is a Master of the Bench at the Middle Temple Inn, and chairs and co-chairs a number of All-Party Parliamentary Groups in Westminster, including the APPG for London.

As a resident of Chislehurst, Bob is closely involved with a raft of local organisations and meets regularly with residents and community groups, voluntary organisations and local businesses to hear their views, campaign on their behalf and represent their concerns.

Find out more about this event here.

This panel brings together experts in human rights, ethics and global governance to debate the principles of climate justice and how they can be applied to climate-induced displacement.

Climate change is widely expected to lead to widespread displacement and migration worldwide. Rising sea-levels, flooding, heatwaves and drought are threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people. Climate justice requires us to respect and protect the human rights of people facing climate-related displacement. What rights do climate migrants have, and whose responsibility is it to assist those who seek to escape the ecological threats that climate change produces? Does international law offer sufficient legal protection for displaced people? Or do we need to strengthen international protection regimes for climate migrants? 

Panel:

Professor Conor Gearty
Professor Tahseen Jafry
Professor Chukwumerije Okereke
Dr Joana Setzer

This event forms part of LSE’s Shaping the Post-COVID World initiative, convening a series of debates about the direction the world could and should be taking after the crisis, collaboratively producing a roadmap for the future.

Find out more about this event here.

Fantastic JUSTICE members-only webinar series titled ‘Career Conversations’. Over the course of this series you will have the opportunity to hear from a range of excellent speakers from the JUSTICE membership, sharing their various paths into and through the law.

On Thursday 15 October we welcome Victoria Butler-Cole QC as our speaker. 

Victoria Butler-Cole QC specialises in health and social care law at 39 Essex Chambers.  Her work includes cases in the Court of Protection, inquests, judicial review, and damages claims arising from the mistreatment of people with learning disabilities and mental disorders. She is a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an adviser to the Medical Mediation Foundation, and a Council member at JUSTICE.

This is a JUSTICE-members only event...good news is that students only need to pay £15 for student membership! Find out more about the benefits of this.

Find out more about this event here.

Traditionally a lawyer’s own views and political affiliation are irrelevant to the pursuit of the legal process. 

This lecture will examine – and celebrate – the work of lawyers who have crossed the usual lines and worked for political change. It will look at the life of South African advocate Bram Fischer, who defended Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia trial, and was himself prosecuted for sabotage and sentenced to life in prison. 

It will consider modern examples of lawyers paying a heavy price for political engagement, as well as the ethical issues which are engaged – how far can a lawyer go?

Professor Thomas Grant QC has 4 lectures in the Gresham programme for this year, called The politics of the courtroom.

Find out more about this event here.

This series of monthly remote workshops organised on the Zoom platform by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies during the 2020-21 academic year seeks to ‘make sense’ of the wide ranging relationship between law and the pandemic through the insights of the humanities, broadly understood as the set of cultural influences which are shaping the use of law and the responses to it. Authors will present theirwork in progress for twenty minutes, followed by questions from the audience and discussion. The intention is to publish the papers following the completion of the series.

This first pairing features:

Public Interest or Social Need? Reflections on the Pandemic, Technology and the Law
Dimitrios Kivotidis, University of East London   

At War with Themselves: The Conflict at the Heart of the Coronavirus Pandemic
Dr David M Seymour, City, University of London

Find out more about this event here.

Writing in the context of resistance to 20th century Fascism, in his "Theses on the Philosophy of History" Walter Benjamin wrote, “The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule.” The pattern of authoritarian regimes exploiting crisis conditions to push forward unjust and marginalizing reforms has been repeated in the context of numerous crises and conflicts worldwide throughout recent history.

Currently, state responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and police responses to the protests that have followed the police killing of George Floyd in the United States have sparked new concerns about governmental weaponization of authentic crisis conditions for nefarious purposes. By looking at key issues surrounding the declaration of official states of emergency, this event will cover how the exploitation of crisis can be understood as an essential ingredient in the production of laws and policies that repress vulnerable populations, violate international human rights, and fuel the power of authoritarian, totalitarian, and corrupt regimes, with dire implications on local and international scales.

Drawing on Benjamin’s conceptualization of the “state of emergency” to frame the conversation, historical and contemporary examples to be discussed by experts from multidisciplinary perspectives include the Trump administration’s exploitation of the COVID-19 pandemic to eliminate environmental and public health protections; the role of national emergency declarations in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War; and unauthorized arrests and violations of the rights of protesters worldwide amid the rise of international anti-racism protests in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Speakers:

Dr Sinan Antoon
Carly A. Krakow
Professor Vasuki Nesiah

Find out more about this event here.

Check out the JUSTICE members-only webinar series titled ‘Career Conversations’. Over the course of this series you will have the opportunity to hear from a range of excellent speakers from the JUSTICE membership, sharing their various paths into and through the law.

On Thursday 22 October we welcome Professor Philippa Webb as our speaker.

Philippa Webb is Professor of Public International Law at King’s College London. She joined academia in 2012 after a decade in international legal practice.  She served as the Special Assistant and Legal Officer to Judge Rosalyn Higgins during her Presidency of the International Court of Justice (2006-2009) and, prior to that, as the Judicial Clerk to Judges Higgins and Owada (2004-2005). She was the Associate Legal Adviser to Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo at the International Criminal Court (2005-2006). Philippa is also a barrister at Twenty Essex Chambers, where her practice covers all aspects of public international law, including state and diplomatic immunities, territorial and maritime boundaries, treaty obligations, law of the sea, state responsibility, human rights, humanitarian law, law of international organisations and international criminal law. She has a significant pro bono practice and is involved in strategic litigation seeking to enhance accountability for modern slavery.  Her publications include Oppenheim’s International Law: United Nations (OUP 2017, with Dame Rosalyn Higgins GBE QC, Dapo Akande, Sandesh Sivamuaran and James Sloan), which was awarded the ASIL Certificate of Merit 2019; The Law of State Immunity (OUP 2015, with Lady Hazel Fox QC); International Judicial Integration and Fragmentation (OUP 2015); and The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law (OUP October 2020, with Amal Clooney), which aims to make the law on the right to a fair trial accessible to counsel and meaningful to victims in courtrooms all over the world.

This is a JUSTICE-members only event...good news is that students only need to pay £15 for student membership! Find out more about the benefits of this.

Find out more about this event here.

Fantastic second round of the JUSTICE members-only webinar series titled ‘Career Conversations’. Over the course of this series you will have the opportunity to hear from a range of excellent speakers from the JUSTICE membership, sharing their various paths into and through the law.

On Wednesday 28 October we welcome Dean Kingham as our speaker.

Dean Kingham is a solicitor who qualified in 2011. He previously completed the Bar Vocational Course in 2005 and decided to cross qualify as a solicitor. He has worked on criminal appeals since 2005. He heads the prison law, criminal and public law teams at Swain and Co Solicitors.

His work at Swain and Co involves regularly representing those before the Parole Board, making applications to the Court of Appeal and submitting cases to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. He is a Committee Member for Association of Prisoner Lawyers and sits on both the Parole Board user group and Criminal Cases Review Commission user group. He is vice chairman of Progressing Prisoners Maintaining Innocence. He sits on the advisory panel of the Miscarriages of Justice Charity Inside Justice and serves on the JUSTICE Council.

In July 2020 he was crowned winner of Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year under the Public law category. A recent example of a Judicial Review challenge he took Warner, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for Justice [2020] EWHC 1894 (Admin), involved a claim against the Ministry of Justice for interfering in the independence of the Criminal Cases Review Commission.  Ultimately, the challenge was not successful but did lead the High Court to conclude “The relationship between the CCRC and MoJ (whether the ALB CoE or more widely) was very poor during this period, even dysfunctional. The poverty of this relationship undoubtedly tested the CCRC’s ability to remain independent of MoJ, and to be seen to be so. It is no surprise that a judicial review was issued in 2018, seeking the Court’s review of these and related matters”.

This is a JUSTICE-members only event...good news is that students only need to pay £15 for student membership! Find out more about the benefits of this.

Find out more about this event here.

The academic year, and legal education “as usual”, endured an unexpected and unsettling upheaval in 2020.  The pandemic produced a steep learning curve for law teachers and students, forced to shift into virtual classroom mode.  In this seminar, Professor Shauna van Praagh explores what she refers to as the “3 R’s” of remote legal education: resistance, reflection, and re-creation.  Resistance flows from an insistence on the importance of presence and proximity in legal education. Reflection underscores the importance of pausing to consider the “why” and “how” at a time educators rush to respond to the “what” of on-line tools.  Finally, re-creation suggests the potential for re-imagining active and interactive learning in law in ways that outlive any virus. This seminar is grounded in Professor van Praagh’s experience of teaching a “Legal Education” course at McGill University’s Faculty of Law, and as the initiator of a collection of pandemic-related essays by legal academics across Canada (Law and Learning in the Time of Pandemic: A Collage).

Find out more about this event here.

This event explores the controversies around removing statues, constructing and reconstructing ‘heritage’, and protesting received ways of deciding what is commemorated, and what is not. 

The speakers will examine the conflicts around the intellectual and cultural rethinking of public spaces and statues in light of the Black Lives Matter movement, the re-sacralization of Hagia Sofia/Aya Sofra, ongoing discussions about the ‘Fourth Plinth’ in Trafalgar Square, the caves at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia, and other examples. The event will involve a discussion of what it means to decide what, or whom, gets placed on a pedestal in a landscape in which heritage, and the investments in heritage, are shifting.

Speakers:

Dr Tatiana Flessas
Jonathan Jones
Dr Sarah Keenan
Dr Luke McDonagh

Find out more about this event here.

Tom Sargant was JUSTICE’s Secretary – broadly equivalent to today’s Director – from its foundation in 1957 to his retirement in 1982.

As a result of his commitment, persistence and determination, JUSTICE played a key role in taking up the cause of miscarriage of justice cases. His tireless campaigning resulted in some 25 people being released, or released early, from prison. He was instrumental in many of the cases featured in the BBC Rough Justice series.

Tom also played a major role in bringing about other key measures such as the creation of the office of Ombudsman and the establishment of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.

He died in 1988.

Each year, we recognise Tom’s work by inviting a high profile speaker – from practice, the judiciary, academia or politics to speak at the Memorial Lecture.

More details to come!

Find out more about this event here.

This webinar shall begin with a talk on the topic as described in the above working title of up to 40 min. A succeeding Q&A session shall allow an intense discussion of the topic. Artificial Intelligence including all of its forms and shapes is on top of the agenda of international, supranational and national policy makers, legislators, regulators and supervisors as well as in society as a whole due to its potential of profound disruption. The seminar shall allow insight into the legal (-methodological) approach to the topic with a focus particularly on selected manifestations of artificial intelligence in financial markets.

Speaker: Professor Gudula Deipenbrock

Find out more about this event here.

This series of monthly remote workshops organised on the Zoom platform by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies during the 2020-21 academic year seeks to ‘make sense’ of the wide ranging relationship between law and the pandemic through the insights of the humanities, broadly understood as the set of cultural influences which are shaping the use of law and the responses to it. Authors will present theirwork in progress for twenty minutes, followed by questions from the audience and discussion. The intention is to publish the papers following the completion of the series.

This second workshop features:

Death, Burials and Funerals: Grieving in the Shadow of Covid-19
Hui Yun Chan, University of Huddersfield

The Politics of COVID-19: Reshaping Healthcare Law and Policy in the UK 
Sabrina Germain, City, University of London

Find out more about this event here.

The ILPC is delighted to announce that Lord Clement Jones CBE will deliver this year’s ILPC Annual Lecture. Lord Clement-Jones is Chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Co-Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence.

We are also pleased to confirm several keynote speakers for the conference, including:
Ellis Parry (Information Commissioner’s Office)
Joanna Bryson (Hertie School, Berlin; University of Bath)
Silkie Carlo (Big Brother Watch)
Julian Huppert (University of Cambridge; Home Office Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group)
Graham Smith (Bird and Bird)
Lorna Woods (University of Essex)
Hamed Haddadi (Imperial College London; Brave Software)

This event is free but advanced booking is required. It is a 2 day conference (19-20th November)

Find out more about this event here.

Organised by Elisabeth Griffiths, Associate Professor and Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Northumbria Law School, and Dr Frances Hamilton, Senior Lecturer and Co-Convenor of the Gender, Sexuality and Law Research Interest Group, Northumbria Law School.

If you would like to reserve a place or submit an abstract (of up to 200 words), please email Elisabeth Griffiths or Frances Hamilton.

This event is kindly supported by the Socio-Legal Studies Association and Northumbria University.

Speakers Include:

• Julie Elliot MP
• Dr Frances Ryan (Guardian columnist)
• Robin Allen QC
• Dr Jennifer Aston
• Dr Judith Bourne
• Professor Jamie Callahan
• Mark Gatto
• Elisabeth Griffiths
• Dr Frances Hamilton
• Professor Ann Mumford
• Daphne Romney QC
• Professor Lucy Vickers
• Tracey Walsh (partner Womble Bond Dickinson) and
• Wanda Wyporska (executive director of the Equality Trust)

Find out more about this event here.

Call for papers is out so no programme as yet. You can register here however.

Find out more about this event here.

How do we investigate violent and unexpected deaths at the inquest? 

Who investigates? When do deaths get referred to the Coroner? Are inquests non-adversarial and inquisitorial? When do you have a jury? What are findings, determinations and conclusions (aka verdicts)? Can you appeal? Is the process transparent to the public and user friendly? Fit for purpose or in need of reform?

Professor Leslie Thomas QC is the current Gresham Professor of Law and will be doing a series of 6 lectures over the course of the coming year.

Find out more about this event here.

This series of monthly remote workshops organised on the Zoom platform by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies during the 2020-21 academic year seeks to ‘make sense’ of the wide ranging relationship between law and the pandemic through the insights of the humanities, broadly understood as the set of cultural influences which are shaping the use of law and the responses to it. Authors will present theirwork in progress for twenty minutes, followed by questions from the audience and discussion. The intention is to publish the papers following the completion of the series.

This third session features:

Penal System and Biopolitics in the time of Covid-19 Pandemic: An Indonesian Experience
Harison Citrawan, Ministry of Law & Human RIghts, Republic of Indonesia
Sabrina Nadilla, Ministry of Law & Human Rights, Republic of Indonesia

Walls and Bridges: Metaphors of Movement and Constraint in Legal Responses to COVID-19
David Gurnham, University of Southampton

Security and the Pandemic: A View from Hong Kong
Marco Wan, University of Hong Kong

Find out more about this event here.

Gresham College lecture

Speaker: Professor Thomas Grant QC

Is the jury system the bulwark of individual liberty? 

This lecture will look at the role of the so-called “perverse jury” in acquitting defendants where the law, or the charge itself, is deemed unjust. Famous examples are Kempton Bunton (for the “theft” of Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington in the 1960s), Clive Ponting, and Randle and Pottle. 

But the jury can also be a bastion of prejudice: white juries habitually acquitted white defendants in the US in race violence cases. Does the jury system need improvement? Should its right to deliver a perverse verdict be curtailed?

Find out more about this event here.

Gresham College lecture

Speaker: Professor Leslie Thomas QC

Is there is a level playing field between participants at inquests? What does ‘equality of arms’ mean? Is such a concept appropriate when looking at inquests? Are inquiries better? 

How have they developed since the IRA Death on The Rock case? What are the problems faced by those representing families, is there a case for fundamental change? If so what model should we adopt to replace the present system?

Find out more about this event here.

Gresham College lecture

Speaker: Professor Leslie Thomas QC

We hear too often about sudden death in adults following prolonged and often unnecessary police restraint. What do people know about the dangers of restraint and how widespread is our understanding of such deaths? 

This talk explores the legal implications facing the state and what steps can be taken and implemented to save more lives and have safer policing. 

Do these deaths disproportionately affect African Caribbean men given recent BAME stop and search statistics?

Find out more about this event here.

Gresham College lecture

Speaker: Professor Thomas Grant QC

In the wake of the decision in the parliamentary prorogation case Miller (No.2), the question of the politics of the judiciary has been thrust into the public eye. Was it “a constitutional coup” as some have claimed? 

The Government has promised to “update the Human Rights Act” and review the “relationship between the government, parliament and the courts”. 

Will this limit the power of the judiciary to do justice? Do British judges have too much “power” and are they over-politicised?

Find out more about this event here.