It’s the last day of the legal term and judges in England and Wales have been rushing to deliver their reserved judgments. Although many such rulings are simply published online these days rather than handed out in court, the Royal Courts of Justice are not as tranquil as this recent picture of the great hall might suggest.
At the end of term, there are always far too many judgments to cover in more than a couple of sentences. Here are links to half-a-dozen that caught my eye yesterday:
R (Ammori) v Home Secretary
A High Court judge allowed Palestine Action to challenge its proscription but refused to lift the ban ahead of a hearing in November. I shall be publishing a column analysing this case tomorrow — including a reference to the letter reported in today’s Times from prominent lawyers who argue that Palestine does not currently meet the international criteria for recognition as a state.
Update 0730: I have now published the full text of the letter.
R v Justin Plummer
A man who has twice been found guilty of a woman’s murder almost 30 years ago had his conviction quashed for a second time by the Court of Appeal.
Privatbank v Kolomoisky
The High Court found the former owners of a nationalised Ukrainian bank liable for the misappropriation of more than $1.9bn in a judgment that was apparently leaked before it was formally delivered.
Beth v Security Service
Judges at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal dealt with some interim issues arising from false evidence given by MI5. “What happened in this case gives rise to real cause for concern and must never happen again.” they said.
Financial Conduct Authority v Iain Clifford Stamp
A man accused of dissipating his assets to avoid future confiscation proceedings was sentenced in his absence to 12 months for contempt.
Wathen-Fayed v Housing Secretary and Horizon Cremation
The Supreme Court decided that a crematorium is a building for burning human remains. The definition does not extend to a garden where ashes may be stored. The justices ruled against Mohamed al-Fayed’s widow, the Finnish socialite and former model Heini Wathén-Fayed, who had claimed that a proposed new crematorium would be too close to her home in Surrey.
Thank you,, Joshua: I dare to imagine that, but for your industry, I am far from the only lawyer and NONlawyer having an interest and concern for such issues where these various “clearing of the decks” issues have resonance.
AND this time as to the SO troubling Justin Plummer case I am back in familiar territory.
I looked this case up -and shuddered. Successive governments would all have us believe that with the widely advertised flourish of creating the CCRC all miscarriages had somehow become history- been there, done that; let’s move on. I have despite persistence failed over decades to have any -even- Birmingham MP, let alone Justice Secretary take the slightest interest or pride in the organisation - hence its shameful disregarding as some kind of irritating elephant in the room and hence the unwillingness even to contemplate visiting it.
BUT: please read John Robins’ and Simon Hattenstone’s article in yesterday’s Guardian before assuming that I am exaggerating when I say that progress has never been in a straight line and that the bare facts in this case might cause us all to despair of ANYTHING ever being rectified save in the immediate aftermath of a shocking miscarriage “discovery”.
I had more than a passing acquaintance with the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad and its antics and - let it be said- the over readiness to believe and accept their evidence and their methods, extending- it has to be said- even to some judges. Was this the case with Mr - note the “Mr”- Plummer and his case.
The bare facts: on his original trial now was a supposed expert’s evidence allowed before any jury ?
Good on the CCRC for having quashed that conviction in 2023; but then on his retrial out pops a Serious Crime Squad-esque cellmate confession , by then of a deceased SCHIZOPHRENIC police informant- first emerging after his death and therefore unavailable for cross examination. Finally yesterday the Court of Appeal giving short shrift fo that strand of dubious untested evidence quashed the second conviction.
And so, that’s alright, then. As his solicitor Annalisa Moscardini asserted he is finally vindicated after his twenty eight years of refusing to bow the knee.
His barrister Kay Thorne KC deplores-as do I - the admission in evidence of cell mate Christopher Dunne’s evidence but I part company over her talk of a change in the law. The system judicially handled should have prevented the admission of that evidence. So many species of evidence may pop up, only when the system is working for the police service, cos Halle goes by the defence or rejection by the trial judge to ensure a fair trial.
I do agree with her however that.the support, or lack of it, given to those found to have suffered from such miscarriages makes a sour joke of the notion of equal treatment for all, even for tasty candidates for conviction such as prolific burglar Justin Plummer. We must stop trying fo delude ourselves into thinking that all is -sort of- well. In this my co us is scarcely on juries but rather on investigators, prosecutors and judges, where they are responsible for giving jurors every prospect of reaching a just verdict on reliable evidence rather than allowing more elasticity, perhaps because of the antecedents or perceived worthiness of the suspect, later in this case twice the defendant and twice the appellant. Yes, I am shocked; we must never lose the susceptibility to being shocked.
Should you not be declaring an interest when you write about Israel/Palestine, Joshua?