Opinion

The Heyday litigation ended with the publication of the High Court’s judgment last month. After various name changes it now goes by the title R (on the application of Age UK) v Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills [2009] EWHC 2336 (Admin), [2009] All ER (D) 141(Sep).

MP3 players are owned and trusted by the great and good. However, there have been problems reported with the batteries that Apple uses in its iPods. In August, Sky News reported that the European Commission consumer safety watchdog was conducting an investigation as a result of these problems.

Little attention has been paid to a quiet revolution so profound that many solicitors’ firms may end up as quasi-alternative business structures. For over a decade, firms have been employing paralegals in ever greater numbers. They have also been delegating ever more complex, client-facing, work to paralegals. That fact is old news; what’s new is that we are approaching the point when paralegal fee-earners in firms may begin to outnumber solicitors—where solicitors become a minority in their own profession.

It is one thing for the courts to protect citizens from the arbitrary use of prosecutorial discretion resulting in abuse of process; quite another to require prosecutors to spell out the public interest criteria they will apply in relation to particular crimes, not least to particular instances of particular crimes. Circumstances are infinitely variable, especially when a case is hypothetical. Ms Purdy may never be assisted in suicide, by her husband or anyone else. For all we know, she may—like Mrs Pretty—end up dying a natural death in an English hospice. In short, Purdy seems unprecedented, unsound and unconstitutional.

“Bombed—lost everything”. That was how one London Citizens Advice bureau memorably recorded the nature of the legal problems for the newly dispossessed “streams” of clients approaching the nascent service. War was declared on 3 September 1939 and the first bureau opened its doors the next day.

The current esteem in which Parliament is held by the British electorate has not been so low for decades, if not centuries. The malaise has its roots in far deeper and longer term problems than the various scandals and debacles that reach the news. Given the state of disillusionment and the problems inherent in the current system, the tasks ahead are mountainous. Could Michael Mansfield restore faith in the government’s legal credentials?

If it’s a 60 in London, it’s only 35 in Washington. National legal aid got going later in the US. President Obama issued a special proclamation celebrating the 35th birthday of a US national civil legal aid service through the establishment of a legal service corporation.

Although swine flu has temporarily abated, the current medical wisdom is that it will re-emerge with a vengeance in the autumn of this year. If it does or in the event of an alternative pandemic outbreak, there is a possibility that demand for critical care services will swamp capacity.

The Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 (PSA 2009) received Royal Assent on 21 July 2009. It is a short piece of legislation consisting of a mere 15 sections and three schedules.

Lookism in the workplace—discrimination or a fact of life? asks Helen Crossland