Now that women will make up 40% of High Court judges come June 2015, is gender now irrelevant? Hardly. Women have made up slightly less than 10% of all High Court judges in the court’s history.
Can the serious atmosphere of court, standing in the dock facing a be-wigged judge and barristers, be carried over into the world of video-conferencing? Skype of the Bailey, if you will. This is what the…
Late last week, an Italian court sentenced the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise liner, Francesco Schettino, to 16 years’ jail after finding him guilty of multiple charges of manslaughter. On January…
The case of Pablo Picasso’s former electrician Pierre Le Guennec and his wife, Danielle, came to a close on February 12. The pair are accused of handling stolen goods – 271 of Picasso’s works. The French…
Maverick MP George Galloway has announced he is suing Guardian journalist Hadley Freeman over an accusation she made about him on Twitter, following his appearance on a recent edition of Question Time…
The UK Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the police in a case that questioned whether they should be liable for negligence after failing to prevent the murder of a woman in Wales in 2009. The court…
In 1998, if Congress hadn’t extended copyrights by 20 years, George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind would all be in the public domain…
In May 2013, Michael Suve McDonald beat to death Lana Towers, his partner of eight years and the mother of their two children. In what is thought to be a world first, the South Australian Commissioner…
You probably don’t tend to consider any legal issues while watching Rita Ora’s recent parody of Beyonce’s 7/11 or the Chatroulette version of Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball. But there are limits to the extent…
Every year thousands of new laws are introduced. Some of these are well publicised and debated, such as the recent changes to the rules on pornography, but others slip under the radar. Many are quite important…
It isn’t until Episode 7 of the certified podcast sensation Serial, that listeners learn about the show’s silent partner. Quietly, and with little fuss, the University of Virginia Innocence Project has…
Recently, it was reported that asylum seekers are “staying indoors”, fearful of breaching the Asylum Seeker Code of Behaviour. All unauthorised maritime arrivals (UMAs) who are granted bridging visas are…
Late last week, the federal government appointed Geoffrey Nettle, a Victorian Court of Appeal judge, to the High Court to replace retiring justice Susan Crennan. Nettle is an excellent lawyer and his appointment…
The Productivity Commission raised a few eyebrows when it called for an additional A$200 million for legal assistance services to disadvantaged Australians, who are “more susceptible to, and less equipped…
The idea of the grand jury is already familiar to many Australians through American television legal drama. But its profile just skyrocketed with a grand jury deciding not to indict policeman Darren Wilson…