Posts tagged Law
Posts tagged Law
The judge in the original case, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Joel Groves, found that the hospital and doctors were responsible when Cojocaru’s uterus ruptured, sending the fetus into her abdominal cavity and depriving it of oxygen for more than 20 minutes. But Justice Groves’ decision to award Cojocaru $4 million in damages was overturned by the B.C. Court of Appeal, which found 321 of 368 paragraphs in his ruling were copied “almost word-for-word” from the prosecution’s written submissions.
A vicar who claims he was driven out of his picturesque rural parish is attempting to make legal history by having his complaints against the Church of England heard by an employment tribunal.
The Rev Mark Sharpe alleges he was, in effect, forced to leave his Worcestershire parish after he and his family suffered four years of harassment without support from church leaders.
…
The spokesman said: “The Church of England maintains that its parochial clergy are office holders, rather than ‘employees’ or ‘workers’, the terms on which they hold office being laid down by a comprehensive framework of ecclesiastical law, which forms part of the law of England, so that there is no scope, or need, for them to work under a contract.
“Claims for unfair constructive dismissal and whistle-blowing are, therefore, outside the purview of the employment tribunal.”
Police chiefs are facing damaging allegations that they authorised undercover officers embedded in protest groups to give false evidence in court in order to protect their undercover status. … Boyling and the protesters were represented by the same law firm, Bindmans, as they held sensitive discussions to decide how they were going to defend themselves in court. The activists allege that Boyling and his superiors broke the campaigners’ fundamental right to hold legally protected consultations with their lawyers and illicitly obtained details of the private discussions.
Lengthy prison sentences imposed on youths who used Facebook to incite riots and on offenders who took part in looting have been upheld by the court of appeal. … Sentences given in three handling cases, involving Stephen Craven, David Beswick and Stephen Carter, were, however, reduced. Of these, the court of appeal noted: “Each represents opportunistic involvement after the burglaries had occurred and although in close proximity to the scenes of the disorder, the appellants did not participate or contribute to them. The sentences must recognise these distinctions.
It is every chef’s worst nightmare: a celebrated critic samples your food and gives it the thumbs down. So when AA Gill ate at the restaurant in the Brecon Beacons, tensions in the kitchen boiled over. A court heard that McCubbin snapped and swung a punch at kitchen worker Keith McVaigh before pushing him downstairs and tussling with him. … Bruce Gray, defending, told the court: “Shortly before the incident AA Gill, the respected food critic, came in. “At the end of his meal he was asked whether he enjoyed it and in his rather flippant manner, his response was, ‘Disgusting’. “I say this to give you some idea of the stress of working in an environment where reputation is everything. Mr McCubbin feels he has to check and double check everything. … AA Gill later awarded the restaurant a four out of five rating in his Sunday Times column.
Mr Hilton also suggested to Mr Cameron that he simply ignore European labour regulations on temporary workers, to the alarm of the most senior civil servant in Downing Street. “Steve asked why the PM had to obey the law,” said one Whitehall insider. “Jeremy [Heywood, Mr Cameron’s permanent secretary] had to explain that if David Cameron breaks the law he could be put in prison.
Do you know that this is a Christian country?” Leach replied, according to a court transcript quoted in the press. “You must believe in something. The oath (of allegiance) doesn’t mean anything if you don’t believe in God…The things we believe in, in this country, stand for Christian values and the teachings of Jesus Christ.” He added: “Not everybody follows this, but that is what we try to attain in this country, the Christian way of life. I feel you must have some kind of faith, but you don’t seem to believe in anything from what I can gather… As I understand from your evidence, you have no religion at all.” The judge denied the Bergsmas’ application because, in Leach’s opinion, under Section 10 of the Canadian Citizenship Act, the Bergsmas were not of good character—a judgment he based on their professed atheism.
It is lamentable news, not least because the orders have provided some of the daftest stories of the last decade. … Take, for example, 47-year-old Stuart Hunt of Loch Ness, who appeared in court last year in breach of an asbo that banned him from laughing, staring or slow-clapping – imposed as part of a six-year feud with a neighbouring family. He was charged with the breach after chuckling in his car at a rude gesture made by the neighbours’ young daughter. Hunt told papers at the time: “They charged me with laughing … I couldn’t believe it.
The rise of collegial, cooperative regulation in accounting is perhaps even more striking than in the case of medicine. Medicine could look backwards to its ancient origins, and indeed in institutions like the Royal College it already had a template of collegialism. By contrast, while the archaeology of modern accounting systems can be traced to the eighteenth century, the organization of the profession in the nineteenth century involved the separation of the occupation from a long trail of low-status jobs like bookkeeping. More important still, the profession was the product of state regulation of companies. Two states in that regulation were critical. The Bankruptcy Acts of 1831 and 1849 made discharge from bankruptcy conditional upon the report of an official assignee, typically an accountant. The Companies Act of 1862 is usually labelled ‘the accountant’s friend’ because, in establishing the position of official liquidator in company failure, it created a large market for any group that could claim expertise in accounting failure. With over 13000 insolvencies over the following 20 years, the act created a lucrative market. The legislation of 1855, which introduced limited liability, created an even more significant market in audit through its provisions for financial reporting—more significant because it was detached from the specialist area of company failure and was a source of recurrent business from prospering firms.
