I’m pleased that Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are raising the question of the Pope’s potential legal liability for his apparent role in allowing the abuse of children by priests to continue by failing culpably to take action […]

Following my post on the “legal bits” of the Labour manifesto, here’s my analysis of the most important Conservative proposals of particular legal interest. I warn you: this is a long one, and needs sub-headings.

Constitutional law

On the constitution, the Tories […]

Obviously all the parties’ manifestos will contain long lists of items many of which could end up as legislation. I want to focus though on some of the “pledges” that are of particular legal interest or significance. Starting with Labour’s […]

I wrote at Comment is Free yesterday, defending the government’s proposals on retention of DNA profiles in the Crime and Security Bill, and generally arguing against the idea that profile retention is a major invasion of human rights:

… much […]

I may have been less visible than usual here recently, but that’s not been simple idleness – and I have been writing elsewhere, including this piece the other week on Index on Censorship about Jon Venables. I was a […]

It’s not often health and safety law is big news – but it has been in Australia this month, as a result of the judgment of the High Court of Australia in the Kirk case.

Graeme Kirk was director […]

A lot of the talk about the release of Munir Hussain, the law of self-defence and the functioning of the courts this week has missed several points. Why, people ask, didn’t the judges take account of the anguish Hussain […]

Michael White, writing on the Guardian’s website, argues that John Demjanjuk, currently on trial in Munich, should not be. Demjanjuk is accused of involvement in the murder of thousands at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during […]

The Guardian today carries an interview with the DPP, Keir Starmer – well worth reading of course, though it’s certainly not his first media interview because Clive Coleman spoke to him on the BBC’s Law in Action in […]

It appears that the Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill is likely to announce today the release on compassionate grounds of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi. Brtitish justice ministers are obviously feeling quite compassionate this summer.