John Hemming's Web Log

This is a press release from Jersey.

This case which is a public judgment involves the imprisonment of a woman for taking her father to see a solicitor. Firstly, people should not be imprisoned in secret. That is a clear contravention of the rules of the court. On the 12 October 2012 many of the old rules relating to committal were taken out of the rules of the supreme court see this . However, rule 81 was updated and states: The hearing 81.28 (5) If the court hearing an application in private decides to make a committal order against the respondent, it will in public state – (a) the name of the respondent; (b) in general terms, the nature of the contempt of court in respect of which the committal order is being made; and (c) the length of the period of the committal order. This has not been done. Secondly, people should not be imprisoned for attempting to get legal advice for someone else. This is looked at in more detail on The Witchfinder General . The same judge (HHJ Cardinal) has been part on two...

Initially I was concerned about the proposals to use a Royal Charter for the recognition of a press regulator. However, the proposal in detail puts some control on the changes to the charter (essentially so that contentious changes would not go through). Hence, it does seem to have merits as a process. It introduces a new constitutional process which is like statute, but with a super majority. I am not sure it is essential as the real problem has been the failure of the police to investigate and prosecute crimes, but it is better than statute.

OPEN LETTER to Sir Albert Bore and Stephen Hughes Dear Sir Albert and Mr Hughes, I understand that you have announced that the City Council is proposing a council tax freeze for the year. I would welcome this on behalf of my constituents. However, I would ask why if you have a council tax freeze you are still intending to charge people on JSA council tax. In the detailed figures from the city council it is intended to raise £1,292,152 from the poorest residents because of a need to identify additional council tax benefit as a result of a 1.45% increase in council tax. If the city council takes the government grant of £2,129,441 and does not charge a contingency figure then there is no financial need to charge anything to the poorest citizens. It is worth noting from the speech of the Minister Brandon Lewis MP that the government have said that they will keep this issue under review and although there is no promise of additional funding in the next financial year, nor has i...

This is my evidence to the joint committee on privilege yesterday.

This is an article and this is a recording including an interview with Eileen Munro. During this interview she says (in response to a question about whether or not the UK government is likely to apologise in the future for the damage done to families today) "I would not be surprised if a future generation looks back and thinks how horrific the quality of our work was and the damage that we did to families." I have put this to her and she wishes to ensure that this is seen within the context of improving services in places like Hackney. She said: "I made this comment in the context of expressing a hope that we shall learn a lot more about how to help parents take good care of their children so that we then will look back on today and think how poor our work was. Taken out of context, it could be very misleading. Like you, I want to see improvements in child protection services and I am hearing of some authorities making reforms that are getting some positive ...