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13 November 2014
Issue: 7630 / Categories: Legal News
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Quotas for female judges?

Quotas should be introduced to ensure at least a third of all senior judges are women, a major report has concluded.

The report, Judicial Diversity: Accelerating Change, by Geoffrey Bindman QC and Karon Monaghan QC, commissioned by the shadow Lord Chancellor Sadiq Khan, recommends that more part-time and job-share judicial posts be made available, and that part-time salaried judges be permitted to continue to practise as a lawyer. It recommends replacing the system of circuit judges with regional appointments, and allowing academics to become judges.

The report notes that the “assumption that the problem will solve itself” as younger lawyers rise through the profession is “put in doubt by the statistical evidence.”

Although the report was commissioned by the Labour Party, it will not automatically become party policy.

Issue: 7630 / Categories: Legal News
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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Carey Olsen—Patrick Ormond

Carey Olsen—Patrick Ormond

Partner joinscorporate and finance practice in British Virgin Islands

Dawson Cornwell—Naomi Angell

Dawson Cornwell—Naomi Angell

Firm strengthens children department with adoption and surrogacy expert

Penningtons Manches Cooper—Graham Green

Penningtons Manches Cooper—Graham Green

Media and technology expert joins employment team as partner in Cambridge

NEWS
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 
A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
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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