The House of Lords has recently restricted the scope of strict liability for defective work equipment but employers could still be liable for negligence, particularly when employees use vehicles for work purposes, says Susan Dearden
All over the place there are notices up in robing rooms that ask us: have you ever thought of a judicial career? They are a bit like those “Your Country Needs You†posters, but without the moustache. For much of our careers the answer to the question, like so many questions posed on posters and advertisements, has been a pretty clear: “No, actually.†Being a judge seems so far away from what we do – being unnaturally quiet, not getting worked up about the outcome of the hearing, fooling about with your mates in the robing room and so on – that it appears to be an alien job, existing in a parallel universe to the court rooms that we inhabit.
Justin Bates revisits two cases concerning the Boundary Committee's actions when it advised on the move towards unitary authorities, and discusses a case clarifying the duty to provide accommodation to children under the Children Act
Premiums might go up, or they might not, but either way solicitors would benefit from putting in early and properly presented applications to their indemnity insurance provider and avoid last year's fiasco. Jean-Yves Gilg reports
Websites offering user-generated content that behave responsibly in relation to copyright infringement should be safe from court action – at least until there is further development in this area of the law, says Dawn Osborne
Proposed plea bargaining powers would have important ramifications for both prosecutors and defenders in complex financial crime cases, says Steven Francis
With wider protection available to whistleblowers, employees' concerns about environmental damage should not be disregarded as too trivial, says Daniel Tivadar
Sean Hodgson's case has huge implications for the use of DNA evidence in proving innocence, and those who believe DNA analysis could help them in an appeal against conviction should take action, says Julian Young