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21 May 2021 / Theo Huckle KC
Issue: 7933 / Categories: Opinion , Legal aid focus , Criminal
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Post Office postscript: what price justice?

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The PO cases bring into sharp relief serious failings & inaccessibility on both criminal & civil sides of our justice system, says Theo Huckle QC

In his comment piece here on 7 May, Jon Robins posed the question as to whether the Post Office (PO) scandal is just one example of miscarriage of justice in a system no longer fit for purpose (see ‘Post Office: far from the end of the road?’ NLJ 7 May 2021, p7). He queried in particular whether the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), established under s 8 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 in the aftermath of the 1970s miscarriage cases (Guildford Four; Birmingham Six; Maguire Seven; Judith Ward) and the ensuing Royal Commission on Criminal Justice report of July 1993, was fulfilling its intended function given the drastic reduction in its funding and, consequently, in the number of cases it referred to the Court of Appeal. Dr Robins referred to specific cases (Malkinson; Benquit) of convictions in

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Freezing orders in divorce proceedings can unexpectedly ensnare third parties and disrupt businesses. In NLJ this week, Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins explains how these orders—dubbed a ‘nuclear weapon’—preserve assets but can extend far beyond spouses to companies and business partners 
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Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
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