The Scottish Government has launched a consultation, "Strengthening for the Future" which includes proposals to reform and streamline Scotland's Children's Hearings system and to improve the support given to vulnerable young people. The consultation document proposes plans to create a single national body which will bring together the work of the Children's Reporter service, the delivery and administration of Children's Hearings, and the recruitment and training given to panel members. It will also assist the work of safeguarders.

The Minister for Children and Early Years, Adam Ingram, is quoted as saying: "Our distinctive Children's Hearing's system - which is recognised by experts across the world - makes a huge difference to young people's lives, guiding them through difficult times, behaviour and circumstances.

"This may include ensuring appropriate services are in place to help vulnerable children who have been abused or neglected, or even those who have committed a crime so that they can get their lives back on track.

"By improving support for those who deliver that system, both professionals and panel members, they can in turn focus their skills on creating a better and brighter future for the children who need our help.

"The creation of the single national body will also allow us to reduce bureaucracy in the system while ensuring services continue to be delivered locally and with great consistency in decision-making for the benefit of everyone involved."

The consultation runs until the end of October.

Labels: Children, News

Just a brief note to let you know that, as of 29 July 2008, Nominet have altered their dispute resolution service's policy and procedures, including the introdution of a new, cheaper "summary decision" option.

Details of how to make those cyber-squatters feel the pain can be found on Nominet's Summary of changes to the DRS Policy and Procedure, "Less squatters' rights? Nominet lowers the cost of complaining" on Naked Law; or "Nominet DRS changes go live today" from the IPKat.

Labels: IP, News

The High Court has awarded victory to a Sikh schoolgirl who was excluded from school for wearing a religious bangle, upholding a 25-year-old Law Lords ruling allowing Sikhs to wear items representing their faith.

The human rights group Liberty, representing 14-year-old Sarika Singh, successfully argued that Aberdare Girls' School in South Wales breached race relations and equality laws by excluding her since November 2007 for wearing the kara (a plain single bangle widely accepted as a central tenet of the Sikh race and religion).

Liberty filed the legal challenge in the High Court on 19 December 2007 which argued that the Governing Body of the Aberdare Girls' School had indirectly discriminated on the grounds of race contrary to the Race Relations Act 1976; breached the duty to promote equality under s71 Race Relations Act 1976; indirectly discriminated on the ground of religion or belief contrary to the Equality Act 2006; and breached the Human Rights Act 1998 Article 8 (the right to a private life).

Anna Fairclough, Liberty's Legal Officer representing the Singhs, said: "This common sense judgment makes clear you must have a very good reason before interfering with someone's religious freedom. Our great British traditions of religious tolerance and race equality have been rightly upheld today."

Noting that schools have a role to play in developing principles of religious and racial tolerance in its pupils, Mr Justice Silber said in his judgment: "Without those principles being adopted in a school, it is difficult to see how a cohesive and tolerant multi-cultural society can be built in this country ... I hope that the school will take all possible steps to ensure first that [she] can become quickly assimilated again within the school and second that there will be no bullying of her for racial or religious reasons."

Singh, of mixed Welsh/Punjabi origin, has been raised in the Sikh faith and was the only Sikh at the Aberdare Girls' School. The school's uniform policy prohibits the wearing of any jewellery other than a wrist watch and plain ear studs. When the school noticed that Singh was wearing the kara, she was isolated for two months, including during meals and physical education classes despite her offer to remove or cover the Kara during exercise, before being excluded entirely in November 2007.

The BBC News website has a good summary of recent School and religious symbol cases and, even on a cursory read, is is clear that they lack a cohesive thread. It is difficult to see why a kara bracelet is allowed, but a "purity ring" is not; or why jilbabs may be banned, but hijabs may not.

BTW, I would recommend not searching for the term "kara" on Google images - especially if your employers are interested in the kind of images you view on your work PC. Don't say i didn't warn you!

Labels: Children, Discrimination, Education Law, Human Rights, News

For some considerable time (20 years or more), people in Scotland who knew about such things would have told you that the parents of children with special educational needs (or, latterly, additional support needs) have the same rights to make a placing request as other parents. However, they were just plain wrong. We now know - thanks to the judgement of the Lord President, Lord Hardie and Lord Macphail in W.D. v. Glasgow City Council [2007] CSIH 72 - that the right to make a placing request is restricted if you child has additional support needs. Restricted, that is, to the boundaries of the local authority area in which you happen to live.

Three cheers, then to the Scottish Government who are proposing to reverse the Inner House's decision and give the parents of pupils with additional support needs the right to make a placing request to whichever school they damn well please!

However, it appears that this seemingly uncontroversial proposal has caused some concern in certain quarters. Discussion on this point has reached the national media.

Check me out! I am quoted with my Govan Law Centre hat on in these articles:

• Hope for Children who Need Help in Class, The Herald 28 July 2008
• The Hidden Cost of Choice, The Herald 29 July 2008
• Govan Law Centre Welcomes Support for Change in Classroom Choice

Labels: Education Law, Inner House, News, Scottish Parliament

I'm just back from my holidays in Aviemore - and what a nice time we had. Among the highlights of the trip were the number of red squirrels we saw. Never having seen even one before, I was delighted. If you like to see some too, I'd recommend the feeding station at the Inshriach Alpine Nurseries - where they do very nice cake as well.

I've uploaded some footage from our camera to YouTube, which should appear as a 15 second clip below.

Please note, that as this helpful guide from the Highland Red Squirrel Group points out, thanks to the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 it is now an offence to "intentionally or recklessly:

• kill, injure or take (capture) a Red Squirrel;
• damage, destroy or obstruct access to any structure or place which a Red Squirrel uses for shelter or protection; or
• disturb a Red Squirrel while it is occupying a structure or place which it uses for that purpose.

While you're in the area, you may also wish to locate solicitors in the Highlands.

Labels: Environmental Law

UK record labels' association BPI have reached an agreement with major internet service providers (ISPs) and government on measures to help significantly reduce illegal filesharing.

Following negotiations facilitated by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), BPI on behalf of hundreds of UK record companies big and small has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK's six largest internet service providers. The Motion Pictures Association of America and BERR have also signed.

The Memorandum places joint commitments on the signatories to continue developing consumer education programmes and legal online services. Most importantly, for the first time ISPs will be required to work with music and other rightsholders towards a "significant reduction" in illegal filesharing.

To achieve this, in the first year hundreds of thousands of informative letters will be sent by participating ISPs to customers whose accounts have been identified by BPI as being used illegally. In addition, under the auspices of Ofcom, the signatories will work together to identify effective mechanisms to deal with repeat offenders.

Alongside the Memorandum, BERR has today published a consultation on proposed new legislation requiring ISPs to deal effectively with illegal filesharing. It is anticipated that the outcome of this consultation will provide a co-regulatory backdrop to the Memorandum.

In this context, one of Scotland's most prolific music pirates was jailed for more than three years earlier this week.

John Croy was convicted of three offences by Dumbarton Sheriff Court. He was given three custodial sentences of three years two months, which are to run concurrently.

Police raided Croy's home in August 2005, finding 12 computers, 6 laptops, 79 external hard drives and about 6,500 discs, containing more than one million MP3 files. The BPI claimed that Croy supplied master discs to other major counterfeiters in Scotland.

Labels: IP, News

Direct Line has won a judicial battle to prevent rivals esure from using a mouse on wheels logo. The judge ruled that it was too similar to Direct Line's logos and might lead to confusion.

Direct Line has used a phone on wheels since 1990. Subsequentlt, esure introduced a mouse on wheels in 2004. A mouse on wheels was then used by Direct Line thus igniting the dispute.

The court agreed esure's advertising could be confused with Direct Line's campaign and blocked esure's application to trademark the logo.

Labels: IP, News

The World Intellectual Property Organisation have ruled that the domain name narnia.mobi should be transferred from the Edinburgh couple who bought it for their son to use for e-mail to the C.S. Lewis Company.

The family have been quoted as saying: "It should have been pretty straightforward. They had to prove that we had made a bad faith purchase, that we had been using it to make money. We provided very clear statements from the internet registration company saying that we had not tried to make any money and yet somehow it has just simply ignored the evidence."

To look on the bright side, they still have TheQueen.mobi, USPresident.mobi, and holyspirit.mobi - which presumably came as part of a package with JesusChrist.mobi and YHWH.mobi?

In the judgement, significant reliance was placed upon the fact that the family had, following the complaint by the estate of C.S. Lewis, purchased the domains freenarnia.com and freenarnia.mobi. This move was viewed as evidence of bad faith on their part. You can read the decision here: C.S. Lewis (PTE.) Ltd. v. Richard Saville-Smith (Case No. D2008-0821).

Labels: IP, News

News has reached us from the Norwich Evening News that former Celtic FC goalkeeper, David Marshall has been fined £800 for not having a TV licence. This is on top of an existing £90 fine for driving whilst using a mobile phone - which is now overdue and, as yet unpaid. We are told that he also had to pay costs and a £15 victim surcharge - though I'm not quite clear to whom that may be. Is TV licence dodging the ultimate victimless crime?

A spokesman for TV Licensing in East Anglia is quoted as saying: "This demonstrates just how effective our detection methods are. .. We have also introduced high-tech handheld devices which we use alongside the fleet of detector vans." And I had always thought that the detector vans were a myth to get TV viewers to behave themselves ...

Labels: criminal law, News

Edinburgh Law Librarian and Blogger, JennieLaw is complaining about a new facebook application which encourages people to gossip anonymously about their friends. Quite correctly, she suggests that the potential for defamatory comments being made in this way could be storing up trouble. Read the post in full, it's called Gossipy Facebook.

Quite apart from possible legal action, remember also that whatever facebook says, the goodbook says "A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends." Proverbs 16:28 (NIV). So just don't.

Labels: Defamation, News

Peter Cherbi's Diary of Injustice in Scotland asks the (not unreasonable) question: why, if the new Scottish Legal Complaints Commission is subject to Freedom of Information legislation, is the Law Society of Scotland not?

He concludes: "What could there be to gain from allowing the Law Society of Scotland to remain exempt from Freedom of Information legislation? Nothing honest, that's for sure!"

Labels: Freedom of Information

The Scottish Government today published the responses to its consultation on proposed amendments to the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004. There were well over 100 responses including 27 from individuals and, of course, one from the Education Law Unit at Govan Law Centre, which I wrote.

• Consultation Responses
• Response by Govan Law Centre (PDF)

Labels: Education Law, Law Centres, Scottish Parliament

Just came across this and I like it - a lot.

Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Anyway, the results are very pretty. Here's one for Absolvitor: Scots Law Online for the last month or so.

You may have read or heard, in various media, the story of Robin Jenkins, the accountant and fraudster who embezzled nearly £100,000 from his employers. He was jailed for almost 5 years by the Sheriff in Falkirk Sheriff Court on Friday.

As it became clear to him that he was facing imprisonment, his solicitor Simon Hutchison recounted, "He basically jumped in a car and visited all the places he ever wanted to visit and was eventually caught in Callander."

In Callander? He went to all the places he ever wanted to visit and that included Callander? No offence to the good people of Callander, but that certainly wouldn't top my list. Here's where I'd go - feel free to add your idea by leaving a comment below.

1. Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil;
2. Geysir, in Iceland;
3. Rocky Mountains in Canada;
4. Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (again);
5. Great Pyramid of Giza, in Egypt;
6. Locations for filming of The Lord of the Rings in New Zealand; and
7. if you have to stick to Scotland, the Italian Chapel in Orkney (again).

Photo: Mogens Engelund, Wikipedia

Labels: criminal law, News

VoteLaw has drawn my attention to the fact that the Charity Commission in England & Wales has ruled that the think tank set up in memory of the late Labour leader John Smith (the Smith Institute) broke the laws governing charities by getting involved in party politics.

The Commission's inquiry reconfirmed that the Smith Institute is a charity and is capable of operating for the public benefit. The inquiry also found that the Smith Institute is producing work which falls within its charitable purposes, is of educational value and is freely available to the public.

However, the Commission has concluded that the trustees were not sufficiently engaged to ensure the proper supervision of the charity, given the nature of its activities, work programme and the political environment in which it operates. The trustees did not adequately manage the risks to the independence of the Institute and its reputation.

Andrew Hind, Chief Executive of the Charity Commission, said "Trustees of charitable "think tanks" have a responsibility to ensure the political neutrality of the work they do. When a charity operates close to the political environment, it must safeguard its independence and ensure that any involvement it has with political parties is balanced ... it was vulnerable to the perception that it was involved in party politics - never acceptable for a charity."

Labels: Charity Law, News

AS we previously reported in Squatters in Narnia? there is currently a complaint before the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) concerning the domain narnia.mobi. A decision is expected this Monday (21 July 2008).

The current owners of the disputed domain set out a spirited defence of their claim in this Scotland on Sunday article: Lions versus Lawyers. I note from the article that the couple in question have also purchased holyspirit.mobi which, presumably, will lead to complaints from the Kirk and their legal department in due course.

Labels: IP, News

Internet expert Scott Cleland testified yesterday before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Internet Subcommittee on broadband regulations and privacy, highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach to Internet privacy, and spotlighting the serious privacy threat posed by Internet applications like Google.

"I am concerned that selective oversight of only broadband privacy matters fosters a blind eye to arbitrage of privacy laws by application companies like Google, Yahoo and others," Cleland said. "This creates perverse incentives for companies not covered by U.S. privacy laws to push the envelope on privacy for competitive advantage."

Cleland noted that while broadband providers are subject to a host of privacy laws and regulations, Internet applications are not subject to any consumer privacy protections. Cleland called the discrepancy a double standard that Google and others have arbitraged to the detriment of consumers. He said "Americans' privacy should not be an unrestricted commodity to sell to the highest bidder." Moreover, Google collects and stores "more private information about more people than any other company in the world."

"The lack of a holistic, comprehensive and balanced approach to privacy is a serious threat to Americans' privacy," Cleland said.

Labels: News, Privacy

News reaches us that Dumfries and Galloway Council has decided not to purchase Raydale Park, the former home of Gretna Football Club, from the administrators to be used as a sport and leisure centre "on legal advice".

On the same day, Goal.com reports that the Ugandan Football Association are threatening new Hearts manager Csaba Laszlo with legal action for absconding from work and joining another team.

FA president Lawrence Mulindwa is quoted as saying: "He is still our coach because he did not give us the three months notice in the contract, did not hand over the house, car and other items before he left."

"We are professional people and hope that Csaba also behaves in a professional manner,"

Labels: News, Sports Law

According to the Office of Fair Trading, the market in personal current accounts is not working well for consumers.

The OFT report on the issue found that much of banks' revenue from current accounts is derived opaquely, with 81 per cent of income coming from two sources: insufficient funds charges (£2.6bn) and net credit interest income (£4.1bn). A significant number of customers do not know how much they actually pay in bank charges, either before or after they are incurred. Over three-quarters do not know the credit interest rate of their current account, and even those that do lack the means to calculate the interest they forgo.

The complexity and lack of transparency of personal current accounts makes it extremely difficult for individual customers to compare their bank account with other offers. There is thus little incentive for consumers to switch - especially as people generally believe that it is complex and risky to switch accounts. Also, when the switching process does go wrong consumers can find themselves bearing a significant proportion of the resulting costs. The result is that only six per cent of customers surveyed had switched in the last 12 months - one of the lowest switching rates in Europe.

A further result is that a minority of customers end up paying much more for their current account than others - for example, in 2006 1.4m people paid over £500 per year in charges. This can often mean potentially "vulnerable", low income and low saving customers paying more as a result of incurring insufficient funds charges. The effect is not made any easier by a lack of simple mechanisms for consumers to control or opt out of an unarranged overdraft.

Overall, the report finds that the personal current account market may be stuck in an equilibrium that does not work well for consumers. Limited understanding of key account elements, combined with low confidence in switching, means that banks have less incentive to provide better offers on charges and interest. But without better offers from banks, consumers have little incentive to switch.

The OFT will spend the coming months engaging with banks and consumer groups to try to achieve greater clarity, transparency and consumer empowerment in this market, either through voluntary change or, if necessary, through other routes, potentially including greater regulatory intervention or a reference of the market to the Competition Commission.

• Reclaim Unlawful Bank Charges!

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Labels: News

BBC News is reporting that Stirling Council may stop charging the elderly for food preparation services. Only eight Councils in Scotland currently charge for the service, and some local authorities have begun paying back people charged for the service.

Scottish ministers plan to introduce new laws on food preparation, as previous guidance "lacked clarity". However, until new legislation is in force, local authorities have been left to interpret the existing legislation on their own - leading to discrepancies between different areas.

A Scottish Government spokesperson is quoted as saying: "We will work with Scottish councils to ensure the intention and wording of the revised legislation is clear and the charging issue put beyond any doubt once and for all."

Labels: News, Scottish Parliament

The Scotsman is reporting that a company which pled guilty to polluting of the water environment was fined a mere £3,000 for causing an oil slick that spread for nine miles across the Firth of Forth.

The maximum fine faced by Ondeo Industrial Solutions at Falkirk Sheriff Court, was up to £40,000. The Firth of Forth is designated a Special Protection Area due to the number of wading birds which call it home.

Lloyd Austin, head of conservation policy at RSPB Scotland, is quoted on the subject of fines for environmental crimes in Scottish Courts: "There's a history of them being so low that they don't provide an effective deterrent," he said.

Labels: criminal law, News

A government run database holding the telephone and internet communications of the entire population would raise serious data protection concerns, the Information Commissioner, warned today. Commenting on speculation that the government is considering the development of such a database Richard Thomas said that it would be "a step too far for the British way of life".

He continued: "I am absolutely clear that the targeted, and duly authorised, interception of the communications of suspects can be invaluable in the fight against terrorism and other serious crime. But there needs to be the fullest public debate about the justification for, and implications of, a specially-created database (potentially accessible to a wide range of law enforcement authorities) holding details of everyone's telephone and internet communications. Do we really want the police, security services and other organs of the state to have access to more and more aspects of our private lives?"

In another blow for the Government, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is today serving enforcement notices against HM Revenue and Customs and the Ministry of Defence following recent high profile data breaches. The notices require both departments to provide progress reports documenting in detail how the recommendations have been, or are being, implemented to improve Data Protection compliance. Failure to comply with an Enforcement Notice is a criminal offence.

• Information Commissioner's Office
• NO2ID Campaign

Labels: News, Privacy

Further to news of plans for a new law centre for Fife, there's more good news in the form of Govanhill Law Centre. Govan Law Centre are to open a Govanhill Law Centre in partnership with the Govanhill Housing Association and Govanhill Community Development Trust.

Following the recent announcement that the Scottish Government is to provide funding for the project from its Race, Religion and Refugee Initiative, the doors will open for business shortly.

Labels: Law Centres, News

A Christian registrar from Islington who was bullied and threatened with the sack because of her religious beliefs on same sex unions has succeeded in her claims of unlawful discrimination by the council.

In its unanimous judgment, the employment tribunal found that Miss Lillian Ladele was directly discriminated against by Islington Council after she asked to be allowed not to perform civil partnership registrations. Miss Ladele's case was financed by The Christian Institute's Legal Defence Fund.

The various acts of direct discrimination included: failing to consider her for promotion; deciding to discipline her and threatening her with dismissal; concluding she had committed gross misconduct; failing to redress allegations that she was "homophobic" and labelling and treating her as homophobic; disregarding her concerns about her treatment; and failing to apply its anti-discrimination policies to gay colleagues who were mistreating her.

The tribunal also accepted that Islington Council had been able to deliver a "first-class" service to homosexual couples seeking civil partnerships, without Miss Ladele's involvement. Therefore, the Council's decision to require Miss Ladele to perform civil partnership registrations, contrary to her conscience, was an unlawful act of indirect religious discrimination.

The Council's actions also amounted to unlawful harassment. The judgment found that the Council "disregarded and displayed no respect for Ms Ladele's genuinely held religious belief," and it created an "intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for her on grounds of her religion on belief."

Reacting to the decision, Miss Ladele said: "I am delighted at this decision. It is a victory for religious liberty, not just for myself but for others in a similar position to mine. Gay rights should not be used as an excuse to bully and harass people over their religious beliefs."

• Miss L Ladele v. London Borough of Islington Employment Tribunal Decision (London Central)

Labels: Discrimination, News

The Inner House of the Court of Session, in hearing an appeal against the decision of a sheriff (who happens now to be the Sheriff-Principal of Glasgow and Strathkelvin) in Glasgow Sheriff Court, has raised concerns about that court's use of conference calls and e-mails.

While being very careful to stress that they were not considering the matter in any detail, Lord Reed went on to make several statements which could only be described as critical.

For example, he stated: "It is a general principle, of constitutional importance, that the administration of justice should take place in open court." He then quoted Lord Diplock in the case of Attorney General v Leveller Magazine Ltd [1979] A.C. 440: "If the way that courts behave cannot be hidden from the public ear and eye this provides a safeguard against judicial arbitrariness or idiosyncrasy and maintains the public confidence in the administration of justice. The application of this principle of open justice ....requires that [proceedings in court] should be held in open court to which the press and public are admitted."

Lord Reed even went so far as making reference to Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and quoted from the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg court (without ever considering the matter in detail, of course).

The Court was evidently concerned that "It is apparent that the discussion in the e-mails passing between the sheriff and the parties' solicitors went beyond administrative matters of the kind which might otherwise have been dealt with by a clerk of court (such as the enrolling of motions, the lodging of pleadings, and the ascertainment of dates when counsel were available). As in the example just mentioned, some of the e-mails contain legal submissions which could have been made at a judicial hearing." As an example, the Court noted "A number of e-mails passed between the sheriff and the parties' solicitors prior to the hearing for further procedure. They illustrate how such an exchange can develop, in effect, into a form of hearing."

Conference calls and e-mail communication are increasingly used in Sheriff Court procedure and can be a quick way of settling procedural matters. However, as the Court noted, such developments "require to be considered with care, bearing in mind that convenience is not the only (or the most important) consideration."

• Read the Anna Jackson v. Hughes Dowdall [2008] CSIH 41 decision in full.

Labels: Human Rights, Inner House, News

Kevin Dunion, Scottish Information Commissioner, has welcomed the House of Lords ruling on the appeal by the Common Services Agency against a Court of Session judgement in favour of his decision in the case of Michael Collie and the CSA.

The decision concerned a request in 2005 by a Green Party researcher for data showing the incidence of childhood leukaemia at ward level in Dumfries and Galloway. The Commissioner ordered release of this statistical data in "Barnardised" form: a method for disguising statistical information to prevent identification. The Court of Session upheld the Commissioner's decision on appeal, after which the CSA took their case to the House of Lords.

The Appellate Committee (Lord Hoffmann, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Baroness Hale of Richmond and Lord Mance ) decided to allow the appeal, and have remitted the decision back to the Commissioner, to establish whether or not the statistical information can be released without the risk of identifying individuals.

Mr. Dunion commented: "I am pleased that the Lords have upheld my view that the Common Services Agency does hold the information in dispute and I am entitled to require authorities to anonymise personal data so that it can be released. Clearly, developments since the issue of the original decision mean that I need to address again what statistical information can be disclosed in this case whilst protecting the privacy of individual patients. I am looking forward to working with the Common Services Agency to establish what information can be released in light of the House of Lords decision."

According to Wikipedia, Barnardisation is a method of disclosure control for tables of counts that involves randomly adding or subtracting 1 from some cells in the table. It is named after Professor George Alfred Barnard (1915-2002), a professor of mathematics at the University of Essex.

• Scottish Information Commissioner
• Common Services Agency v. Scottish Information Commissioner [2008] UKHL 47

Labels: House of Lords, News, Privacy

Yes, I'm on my holidays in Perthshire, so the blog will be updated less frequently for a little while. Of course, the Absolvitor Scots Law Firms Gazetteer has an impressive list of Law Firms in Perth & Kinross for you to browse in or to get some local colour.

In the meantime, many congratulations to my esteemed colleagues, Chala Ferguson and Maria Sharkey of the Govan Law Centre who were both nominated in the category of Trainee Solicitor of the Year in the Law Awards of Scotland 2008. Both thoroughly deserving of the prize, it should pose the judging panel a bit of a headache to separate them.

Labels: Law Centres, News

The High Court has ruled that Pringles are not potato crisps. The delicious and addictive snacks are only 42 per cent potato and the judge decided that they were not therefore "wholly, or substantially wholly, made from the potato."

The importance of this is that, as a result, Pringles are zero-rated for Value Added Tax - and thus cheaper. Hurrah!

NB: the Pringle is in the shape of a hyperbolic paraboloid. Now you know.

Labels: News, Tax

The Electronic Frontier Foundation are reporting that a court ruling will expose the viewing habits of YouTube users. As part of the ongoing Viacom v. Google litigation, the federal court for the Southern District of New York has ordered that Google hand over "all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website."

The Video Privacy Protection Act in the USA is supposed to put a stop to this sort of behaviour, but the Court was apparently persuaded that releasing this information, including IP addresses and log-in ID names, was not sufficient to identify individuals. This is demonstrably untrue.

The Foundation concludes: "The Court's erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube. We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users."

Labels: News, Privacy

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has recently granted a licence to the Clinical Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick, which permits the creation of human-pig hybrid embryos for research purposes.

This licence is purportedly enacted under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The Christian Legal Centre, together with Comment on Reproductive Ethics, has already filed legal papers for a Judicial Review over the decisions earlier this year by the HFEA to grant licences to Newcastle University and Kings College London for their research into degenerative diseases using animal-human hybrids.

While Parliament has recently passed the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that allows for the granting of licences for human-pig hybrid embryo research, the 1990 Act did not.

Professor Justin St. John, the leading researcher on this project at the University of Warwick stated "This new licence allows us to attempt to make human pig clones to produce embryonic stem cells."

The third reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is expected to take place in Parliament as early as next week.

Christian Concern for our Nation (CCFON) have produced an Information and Action Pack on this issue.

Labels: Law and Ethics, News

Phase One of the ICL Inquiry began today at the Community Central Hall, Maryhill.

On 11 May 2004 there was an explosion at a plastics factory operated by ICL Plastics Ltd and ICL Tech Ltd at Grovepark Mills in Maryhill, Glasgow. As a result 9 people died and 33 were injured.

The ICL Inquiry is a joint public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 and is to enquire into the circumstances leading up to the incident and consider the safety and related issues.

The chair is Lord Gill. Counsel to the Inquiry are Roy Martin QC and Kenny McBrearty.

Labels: News

Gamezine is reporting that Topware Interactive have won a court case against four people for illegal file-sharing.

The downloaders were fined 750 pounds each, with a further 2,000 pounds in costs, for uploading Dream Pinball 3D to torrent sites.

As Topware's solicitors have obtained disclosure orders for a further 1,000 names from internet service providers, more litigation is expected.

David Gore, one of Topware's solicitors, said "Copyright owners spend millions of pounds developing copyright works for sale to the public for their enjoyment and yet many think it is acceptable to obtain the work illegally and for free by procuring a copy on a peer-to-peer network."

Labels: IP, News

The Times Online is reporting that a ruling against eBay by a French Court earlier this week would lead to similar lawsuits to block the sale of fake goods on the internet auction site.

eBay were ordered to pay nearly 40 million Euros (30+ million pounds) to Louis Vuitton's designers for allowing fake handbags and clothes to be sold on its website. eBay plans to appeal against the judgement.

Robert Alpert, a litigation partner with Ladas & Parry, an international intellectual property law firm in New York, is quoted as saying: "I expect this ruling to encourage a number of other designers to sue eBay as well."

Labels: IP, News

The High Court today ruled Aamer Anwar did not commit contempt of court by making statements outside court following the conviction his client Mohammed Siddique.

While rejecting the contempt of court charge, the Court did comment critically on Aamer Anwar's statements, stating that they "expected better" of solicitors.

Lord Osborne said the statements from the lawyer "embody angry and petulant criticism of the outcome of the trial process ..".

Not for the first time, Absolvitor asks when News International and Lothian and Borders Police will be hauled over the coals for their angry and petulant criticism of the outcome of the Tommy Sheridan defamation case?

Labels: News