A Lawyer Speaks

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, violated security protocols and endangered troops by using a personal device to share sensitive operational details on the unclassified messaging app Signal, according to reports in the US media of a forthcoming finding. Meanwhile, Hegseth is apparently trying to distance hi...

Brexit has had an impact on everyone who holds a British passport but on none more so than those UK citizens who worked for the European Union and found themselves out of a job after the United Kingdom left the EU in 2020. It was therefore gratifying to see Middle Temple paying tribute to two senior members who had served in the EU courts by commissioning a painting of them. As you can see, it’s a...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com What is property? It seems a simple enough question. I own my clothes. But do I own my body, my ideas, my country? If I own my bicycle and it’s stolen, can I get it back by cutting the chain that the thief has used to secure it? My personal data may be better protected than my bicycle — but do I own it? And what a...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com The rule of law must be protected against further erosion, an all-party parliamentary committee warns us today . Failure to do so, says the House of Lords constitution committee , risks the rise of extremist political parties, ultimately creating space for dictatorship. I was one of many who gave oral evidence . M...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com CoCounsel is the name given by the content and technology company Thomson Reuters to its artificial intelligence assistant for legal professionals. But Pablo Arredondo, who developed its precursor with his colleague Jake Heller and then sold it to Thomson Reuters for $650m, is not so sure about the choice of name...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com Hugh Mercer KC has sat as the UK judge at the European Court of Human Rights for little more than a month. But there will be a general election in less than four years’ time and two major political parties are seeking to have Judge Mercer kicked off the court before he completes his nine-year term of office. Does...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com Democracy is under challenge in the west, a former president of the Supreme Court told me this week. Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, who was the UK’s most senior judge from 2012 to 2017, said the level of disappointment in governments — almost across the Western world — seemed to be pervasive and increasing. People...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com A former diplomat who served at the British embassy in Beijing has cast doubt on what’s thought to have been a major allegation in the failed prosecution case against two men who were accused of spying for China. Professor Kerry Brown , a leading sinologist who would have been called as a defence expert if charges...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com “Politically motivated attacks on the legal profession are irresponsible and dangerous,” representatives of all 250,000 lawyers in the United Kingdom said this week . These attacks, they added , “weaken public trust and confidence in the rule of law and erode the very foundations of justice that underpin fairness...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com The Department for Business and Trade is currently reviewing the opt-out collective actions regime in competition law, a legal structure that enables consumers to claim compensation from corporations that are accused of abusing a dominant position in the marketplace. A recent example was the claim brought against...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com It would be “shame and a mistake” for the United Kingdom to leave the European convention on human rights, the UK’s former judge at the human rights court told me last week. Tim Eicke KC, who was elected to the court in 201 6 for a nine-year-term, spoke to me from Essex Court Chambers, the barristers’ set to which...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com Think of an international court that can stop foreign manufacturers selling pirated copies of British inventions in the UK. It’s a court whose proceedings are largely conducted in English and where UK lawyers abound. This is a court whose use of English legal principles has contributed to its success since it open...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com Leaving the European Convention on Human Rights would be completely contrary to the UK’s national interests, the attorney general said yesterday. Addressing the House of Lords constitution committee, Lord Hermer KC said withdrawing from the convention — and the 46-nation Council of Europe that administers it — wou...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com In July, a little-known body headed by the second most senior judge in England and Wales launched a public consultation on new ways of ensuring access to justice. The Online Procedure Rules Committee — chaired by the master of the rolls, Sir Geoffrey Vos — was created by parliament three years ago to make rules fo...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com Encouraging your future spouse to sign an English prenuptial agreement before you marry has always been a bit of a risk — as Jenny Alzena Helliwell discovered last week. Lawyers for her former husband Simon Graham Entwistle persuaded the Court of Appeal to set their pre-nup aside because she had deliberately faile...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com Donald Trump is not the only prominent figure who may be regretting his dealings with the disgraced financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein . In October 2019, Barclays Bank sent a letter to the Financial Conduct Authority assuring the FCA that the bank’s chief executive, James Edward “Jes” Staley , “did n...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com Reforms to the way sexual assault cases are prosecuted and tried in the courts of England and Wales are recommended in a report today by the government’s reform advisers. The Law Commission’s proposals are intended to provide better protection for complainants while maintaining fair trials for defendants. For the...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com “The present way in which trials are organised, allocated and tried is no longer sustainable and, if continued, will lead to the collapse of the criminal justice system,” Sir Brian Leveson says in his report today on the criminal courts of England and Wales. Leveson was invited to carry out his review by the justi...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com When parents split up, it’s often the children who suffer most. But over the past three years or so, family judges have quietly developed an entirely new way of focusing on the most vulnerable members of a family. Rather than being litigant-led, it’s child-led. To find out how the Pathfinder scheme works — and why...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com Critics who imagine that we can secure our borders against migrants simply by leaving the European convention on human rights have overlooked another major international agreement that the UK signed at around the same time. The United Nations refugee convention of 1951 , extended in 1967, gives important rights to...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com In recent weeks we’ve seen cyber attacks on bodies such as th e Legal Aid Agency and companies such as Marks & Spencer . But many other attacks are simply not made public. How should organisations defend themselves against risks to their data? And should they pay ransom demands in the hope of getting it back? Thes...

What impact has English common law had on the legal system of Israel? That’s the question Lord Pannick KC discussed yesterday with Dorit Beinisch , president of the Supreme Court of Israel from 2006 to 2012. The answer turned out to be considerable. During the British mandate period, there were appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. For decades after Israel’s independenc...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com The Parole Board should increase the number of public hearings it holds each year, an internal review has recommended . It’s one of the ways that the board hopes to achieve greater public understanding of its work. The Parole Board is an independent body whose members make judicial decisions on whether people who...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com It would be “constitutionally improper” for ministers to comply with treaty obligations if that would mean ignoring laws made by parliament, the shadow attorney general said yesterday. Lord Wolfson of Tredegar KC (pictured) was responding to allegations by Lord Hermer KC , the government’s senior law officer, that...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com Lawyers for the families of 29 military and civilian intelligence specialists who were killed when an RAF Chinook helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994 have said they will “consider all legal options” to find out how their relatives died. They have launched a campaign seeking answers and accountability...