Legal bodies run the gauntlet of creating contracts for sets’ fees

The Lawyer: The issue of barristers’ fees is a bit like Fight Club – the first rule is you don’t talk about it. Yet it is an issue that is of increasing importance as litigators ask counsel to share the pain and help clients with limited budgets bring cases to fruition.

Saved from the death squads: Darfuris given asylum in UK

Independent: Hundreds of Darfuris fleeing persecution in Sudan will be given protection in Britain after a government U-turn on its handling of asylum claims brought by refugees from the troubled African state.

The change of policy follows mounting evidence that non-Arab asylum seekers returned to Sudan face arrest, torture and death at the hands of the Arab militias and security services. In one case, highlighted by The Independent earlier this year, a Darfuri man repatriated to Khartoum was executed after government officers followed him to his village in the south of the region.

Darling unveils his great bank bailout – Mk II

Independent: It was groundhog day in the Square Mile yesterday as the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, unveiled his second attempt to revive Britain’s “zombie” banks in just over a year.

Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland were allocated a further £39.2bn to prop them up, just 13 months after the Treasury injected £35bn into the ailing institutions to save them from collapse.

Most of the cash will go to RBS, which will get £25.5bn of taxpayers’ cash to strengthen its balance sheet; up to £8bn more will be available to ensure it can keep trading if there’s a second recession. RBS will also have £282bn of risky assets protected by a state-backed insurance scheme.

David Cameron to shed ‘cast iron’ pledge on Lisbon treaty

Guardian:

• Conservatives abandon plans for referendum on EU agreement
• To appease Eurosceptics, leader will set out tough new stance

Baby RB at risk of more painful death if cared for at home, says infant’s doctor

Times: A severely disabled baby at the centre of a life or death battle between his parents would be at risk of a more painful death if his father was to have him cared for at home, the boy’s doctor told the High Court yesterday.

Doctors, supported by the mother, want to withdraw life support from the one-year-old boy, known as Baby RB, who cannot breathe unaided. But the father, who is separated from the mother, opposes the move.

Footage compiled by Baby RB’s father and played in court showed the boy reacting to a doll, tugging on a balloon string and pulling his mother’s hair, Martin Westgate, representing the father, said.

But Dr F, the consultant in charge of the boy’s care, said that the footage was not evidence of deliberate movement.

City workers ‘driven out of Nomura for not being male or Japanese’

Times: Two City workers who are each suing a Japanese investment bank for £1.5 million say they were driven from their jobs because they were not male and not Japanese.

Maureen Murphy, 30, and Anna Francis, 37, are both suing Nomura for sex and race discrimination and unfair dismissal. Miss Murphy also alleges sexual harassment.

Their barrister, Michael Duggan, told the Central London Employment Tribunal: “This organisation is institutionally racist and sexist.”

Specsavers wins day in court with Asda

Times: Specsavers, the high street optician, is heading for a court showdown with Asda in a row over copycat advertising.

The Guernsey-based retailer has accused the supermarket giant of infringing its trademarks in an advertising campaign for eyeglasses launched online and in more than 80 supermarkets last month.

It claims that the slogan used by Asda — “Be a real spec saver at Asda” — is designed to mislead customers and harm its business. It also objects to the use of a logo with two ellipses similar to Specsavers’ logo.

Specsavers won the first round of the legal battle on Tuesday after a judge agreed to treat the case urgently and scheduled a full trial for April. Mr Justice Kitchin, sitting in the High Court in London, ruled that there was sufficient evidence to believe that Asda’s campaign could threaten Specsavers’ reputation to bring the trial forward.

Saudi rapist and murderer to be beheaded and crucified

Times: A man who kidnapped and raped five children, one of whom was left in the desert to die, has been sentenced to be beheaded and his body publicly crucified.

Muhammed Basheer al-Ramaly, 22, from the northern city of Hail, will be executed at noon today, according to Saudi reports. He will be beheaded by sword then his body tied to a wooden cross and his head stuck on a pole as a deterrent to other would-be killers.

David Cameron to tell voters: no vote on Lisbon Treaty

Telegraph: The Tory party leader’s admission, which could come as early as Tuesday, will bring accusations that he has broken clear promises to grant a popular vote on the treaty.

Mr Cameron gave voters an “iron-clad” promise in 2007 that a Conservative government would hold a popular vote on Lisbon.

Postal union to sue over hiring of casual labour

Independent: The Royal Mail is to face legal action over the recruitment of 30,000 agency staff during the post strike, union leaders announced tonight.

The Communication Workers Union served notice of action in the High Court on Friday after considering the move for the past few weeks.

We got it wrong on immigration, says Johnson

Independent: The Home Secretary admitted yesterday the Government had made serious mistakes over immigration and in the aftermath of the 7 July bombings. Alan Johnson confessed Labour had been “maladroit” in its handling of immigration and accepted ministers had ignored for “far too long” the problems that led to a backlog of 450,000 unprocessed claims.

Mr Johnson also acknowledged parts of Britain were struggling to cope. In his first speech on the subject, he said: “There are communities which have been disproportionately affected by immigration, where people have legitimate concerns about the strain that the growth in the local population has placed on jobs and services.”

Revealed: hidden misery of children trafficked to Britain

Independent: Hundreds of children trafficked to Britain each year are being failed by social workers, teachers and doctors, it is claimed today in a report which uncovers the hidden misery of the international trade in young labour.

Woman admits hiding terror files in burka

Independent: A mother of six has been given a two-year jail sentence after admitting concealing “a mini encyclopaedia of weapons making” in the sleeve of her burka.

Houria Chahed Chentouf, 41, from Manchester, pleaded guilty to two offences of possessing documents likely to be useful for a terrorist. She was released at Manchester Crown Court as she has served her time on remand.

The court heard she accidentally dropped a pen drive containing terror-related documents while being interviewed by officers at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport on 16 October last year.

Tory MP apologises for ‘gas chambers’ expenses email

Independent: A Conservative MP was ordered to apologise by David Cameron after he likened the plight of politicians over expenses to the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany.

David Wilshire’s remarks, on the eve of tomorrow’s publication of wide-ranging plans to overhaul the expenses system, provoked anger and embarrassment in the Tory leadership. The MP for Spelthorne, Surrey, has already been forced to step down at the next election after paying £105,000 of expenses into a company he owns.

Parents fight in court over whether disabled son should live or die

Times: The parents of a severely disabled baby faced each other in the High Court yesterday on opposite sides of a case to determine whether the boy should be allowed to die.

Doctors, supported by mother, want to withdraw life support from the year-old boy, known only as Baby RB. They say he faces a “miserable, sad and pitiable existence”. The father, who is separated from his wife, is fighting the doctors’ application.

Michael Mylonas, for the NHS trust, said that Baby RB, who cannot breathe unaided and has been on a ventilator since birth, faced a life of intolerable pain. He was born with congenital myasthenic syndrome, a neuromuscular condition from which there was no hope of recovery. The syndrome affects only about 300 people in Britain.

Lights are going out at the Foreign Office

Telegraph: Diplomacy rivals prostitution as the oldest profession. Like street-walking, it has never enjoyed a wholly favourable reputation. Often confused with its clandestine cousin, espionage, it has for centuries been associated with deviousness and duplicity. Added to this is the outdated but stubbornly enduring image of the aristocratic diplomat, clad in pinstripes, quaffing champagne, leading the good life in a magnificent embassy.

Despite such stereotypes, other countries have traditionally held the British Foreign Office in high esteem for its pragmatism and expertise. Sadly, this reputation is now under threat. Like much of Whitehall, the Foreign Office today cannot make up its mind whether it is a service or a business. Blitzed by Labour’s targets culture and short of funds, it is punching well below its weight, when diplomacy is needed as much today as at any time in the past 500 years.

Change law on organ donation, doctors say

Independent: Every adult in the UK would be legally required to decide whether to donate their organs after death, under a radical solution to the critical shortage of organs for transplant put forward by the country’s oldest royal medical college. The ethics committee of the 500-year-old Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has called for an examination of “mandated choice” as a means of boosting the supply of organs, the shortage of which is leading to more than 1,000 avoidable deaths a year.

Labour’s great bank sell-off could cost taxpayers another £40bn

Guardian: Alistair Darling will need to pour up to £40bn of taxpayers’ money into the banking system if he is to fulfil a pledge to carve out three new banking players on the high street in the next four years.

A formal announcement from the chancellor on the new shape of the banking industry is expected as soon as Tuesday and will give a clearer picture of the commitment from the taxpayer needed to execute the plans imposed upon the government by Brussels.

The EU is demanding branches be carved out of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group that will be sold to new entrants and operate alongside a rejuvenated Northern Rock, creating three new banking players in an industry that was becoming dominated by a handful of high street names.

Woman left broke by divorce payout takes fight to Supreme Court

Times: A British woman left almost penniless by divorce goes to the Supreme Court this week in a case that will test London’s reputation as the divorce capital of the world.

Sikirat Agbaje, 68, is challenging a divorce award made in her native Nigeria and upheld by the Court of Appeal in London that left her with just under £7,000.

Her former husband, Olusola, 71, a barrister to whom she was married for 40 years, took £616,000, including two properties in London.

But Mrs Agbaje, of New Barnet, North London, argues that the divorce in 2005 should have been heard in Britain, where she would be entitled to a far bigger share of the assets.

Father of Baby RB fights hospital’s decision to turn off life support

Times: A father whose son was born with a rare neuromuscular condition will go to the High Court today to try to stop a hospital withdrawing support that keeps the child alive.

Doctors treating the one-year-old boy say that his quality of life is so poor that it would not be in his best interests to keep him alive. They say that they are supported in their action by the baby’s mother. The couple are separated.

The child, known for legal reasons as Baby RB, was born with congenital myasthenic syndrome, a muscle condition that severely limits movement and the ability to breathe independently. He has been in hospital since birth.

Postal strike helps speeding motorists escape fines

Times: Thousands of speeding motorists may be able to escape fines and penalty points on their licences thanks to the postal strike.

In what is being seen as a test case, a High Court judge has quashed the conviction of a driver because the statutory police letter failed to arrive within the 14-day legal deadline. It had been delayed by Royal Mail industrial action.

The ruling by Lord Justice Elias could lead to a flood of refusals to pay fines by thousands of drivers whose letters were caught in the backlog caused by the strike. It could also force police forces to abandon the Royal Mail to deliver the notices.

Bonuses for lawyers who seize criminal assets ‘risk undermining justice’

Times: Crown Prosecution Service lawyers are receiving personal bonuses linked to their success in confiscating criminal assets, The Times has learnt.

About £1.37 million has been paid in personal bonuses to staff over the past two financial years, the CPS disclosed under Freedom of Information legislation. It did not say what proportion was for hitting confiscation targets, but the disclosure will add to concern among lawyers that providing financial incentives to prosecutors could undermine the criminal justice system.

The confiscation targets are also being increased year by year: the target for this year is a total of 4,743 confiscation orders across England and Wales, with a value of £106 million.

Libel tourists flock to ‘easy’ UK courts

Guardian: An Icelandic professor has emerged as the latest victim of “libel tourism” in Britain after he was sued in the High Court by a wealthy compatriot for a posting on a website based in Iceland.

Hannes Gissurarson was initially bemused when a British diplomat, acting as an envoy of the court, turned up at his door in Reykjavik to serve him with a writ.

The professor of political science was told that judges in London would adjudicate on whether his comments on the University of Iceland’s website were defamatory. During the ensuing five-year legal battle, Gissurarson was forced to sell his home and faced legal costs of more than £150,000.

Peers face lobbying-for-cash ban

BBC: Peers are set to be banned from taking payments to advise companies on how to lobby Parliament, in the wake of cash for influence allegations.

Lords would also get their own standards watchdog under the proposals, Lords leader Baroness Royall has said.

The recommended changes follow an inquiry chaired by Lord Eames.

Date set for Iraq war public hearings

Guardian:

Panel to start hearing evidence on 24 November in London
• Witnesses including Tony Blair will have to testify in public

McNulty told to repay £14,000 of expenses

Independent: Tony McNulty, former employment minister, had to make a humiliating apology in the Commons after claiming expenses on a property occupied rent-free by his parents.

He was also ordered to pay back almost £14,000 to the taxpayer following an investigation into his use of expenses by Westminster’s sleaze watchdog. In a statement to Parliament yesterday, he said he accepted the punishment “with no complaint” and apologised “without reservation”.

It comes just two weeks after Jacqui Smith, the former Home Secretary, had to apologise to colleagues for wrongly designating her family home as her second home, allowing her to claim expenses on it.

Herbert Smith and Lovells win coveted Treasury work

Times: Herbert Smith and Lovells, the City law firms, have won coveted roles advising the Government on preserving the stability of the financial system, The Times has learnt.

Several top City firms were in contention for three places on a legal panel established by the Treasury to advise it on implementing legislation aimed at avoiding banking collapses. Herbert Smith and Lovells were selected alongside Slaughter and May, the Treasury’s adviser on banking matters, the Treasury confirmed last night.

Law lords decide Sigma SIV dispute

Times: Investors in the world’s largest structured investment vehicle (SIV) are set to recover their money after the UK’s highest court clarified how the remains of Sigma Finance Corporation should be divided among competing creditors.

Sigma, worth $27 billion at its peak, collapsed in October 2008 owing investors around $9 billion, substantially more than the value of its investments.

In the first ruling in a business case from the new Supreme Court, five law lords today said investors in Sigma should be treated equally and each take a proportional share of what remains.

The ruling, which applies to investors claiming around $6.2 billion, overturns previous decisions at the High Court and Court of Appeal, which both said investors should be paid out according to how soon their investments in Sigma matured.

Tony Blair’s bid for EU presidency sinks

Guardian: Tony Blair’s hopes of becoming Europe’s first sitting president were receding fast last night as Britain admitted his chances of success were “fading” after the continent’s centre-right leaders made it clear one of their own must have the post.

Hours after Gordon Brown delivered his strongest statement of support for Blair – disclosing that he had spoken to him earlier this week – British sources indicated that the former prime minister was unlikely to assume the high-profile job.

“It would be right to describe Tony’s chances as fading,” one source said. “Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are not terribly enthusiastic. Silvio Berlusconi remains his strongest backer.”

Ex-minister faces expenses rebuke

BBC: Former minister Tony McNulty is to be rebuked for his expenses claims following an inquiry and asked to repay about £13,000, the BBC understands.

Mr McNulty has been investigated by the parliamentary standards watchdog for claiming the second home allowance for a property in which his parents lived.

The Harrow property was eight miles away from his main central London home.

MPs face wide-ranging cuts to their second homes and other expenses, under proposals from an independent inquiry.

Mr McNulty, who has maintained he did not break the rules, is likely to be asked to apologise to Parliament.

Criticism

If he does, he will become the second senior Labour figure to publicly apologise for their actions regarding the second home allowance after former home secretary Jacqui Smith did so earlier this month.

Move to withhold evidence in torture collusion claim

Guardian: Any evidence of MI5 and MI6 involvement in the rendition and torture of Britons now seeking damages must be heard behind closed doors, the government told the high court today.

In a move with profound implications for how the security and intelligence agencies can be held to account, ministers want the evidence to be withheld from the victims of illegal activities and their lawyers.

It is the first time the government has asked the courts to rule that evidence should be kept secret in a civil case involving claims for damages. “I entirely accept [it] is a departure” from the normal course of such litigation, Jonathan Crow QC, for the agencies, the Home Office, the Foreign Office and the attorney general, told Mr Justice Silber.

‘Death tourism’ leads Swiss to consider ban on assisted suicide

Guardian: The Swiss government is considering restricting or even banning organised assisted suicide in an attempt to reduce so-called “death tourism”.

Swiss authorities want to ensure euthanasia is a last resort for the terminally ill, amid fears their current laws on assisted suicide could be open to abuse. A study last year suggested more and more people seeking help to die in Switzerland did not have a terminal illness.

“We have no interest, as a country, in being attractive for suicide tourism,” the Swiss justice minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, told reporters in Berne, adding that more foreigners were travelling to Switzerland to die.

About 100 Britons are believed to have ended their lives at the Swiss clinic of the right-to-die organisation Dignitas, including the conductor Edward Downes and his wife, Joan, and Daniel James, a 23-year-old who was paralysed after a rugby accident.

William Garrow: he paved the way for the modern adversarial system

Times: Right — hands up all those who have heard of William Garrow. H’mm, thought so — me neither.

That will all change for those of you who have not read John Hostettler’s Fighting for Justice: The History and Origins of Adversary Trial (2006, Waterside Press) when BBC One, this Sunday at 9pm, screens the first of a four-part series called Garrow’s Law and inspired by his life.

William Garrow was called to the Bar by Lincoln’s Inn in 1783 and spent the next ten years at the Old Bailey acting for the defence, championing the underdog and pioneering the rigorous cross-examination of prosecution witnesses that paved the way for our modern adversarial system that characterises common-law criminal procedure as practised in the United Kingdom and its former colonies, including the United States.

It was not until 1837 that counsel for the defence were able to argue fact, as opposed to law, and to address the jury.

Bankers’ bonanza bonuses: what can be done about them?

Times: Reining in bankers’ bonuses has become like a Wild West rodeo in which every political cowboy in town strives to bring to heel a powerful bull. Its advocates argue that it should be allowed to run free if it is to generate healthy profits for banks and tax receipts for governments in the future.

Nonetheless, George Osborne’s attempt on Monday to capture headlines by suggesting that retail bankers should be tethered to bonuses worth no more than £2k in cash with the rest in shares underlines that it is open season on bonuses from all parts of the political spectrum. “Where banks do want to pay bonuses this year to those senior staff who have earned them,” the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer said, “those bonuses should take the form of new equity capital — shares in the business.”

Slaughter may lose its legal stranglehold on banking

Times: Slaughter and May could lose its crown as the Government’s preferred legal adviser on the banking crisis. In the biggest legal shake-up since the bank bailouts started two years ago, the Treasury is asking other firms to tender for the business.

The City law firm has been deeply involved in the bailouts since Northern Rock collapsed in 2007. It has received almost £25 million for its advice.

Watchdog proposes shake-up of inheritance law for unmarried couples

Times: Unmarried couples would automatically inherit some of their partner’s estate on his or her death under radical reforms proposed today.

The plans from the Law Commission, the Government’s law reform watchdog, would extend rights enjoyed by married couples to about two million cohabitants.

At present where couples live together and one of them dies without a will, the survivor has no automatic right to inherit their partner’s home or belongings.

Professor Elizabeth Cooke, the Law Commissioner leading the project, said: “These reforms would bring the law into line with public expectation and attitudes, as well as with the law in other Commonwealth countries. People still believe the myth that they have rights as ‘common law wives’ if they live together.”

Has the new Companies Act helped small business?

Times: Will company directors be more accountable to their shareholders and the wider community now that the landmark Companies Act 2006 is now fully in force?

Businesses, lawyers and legislators are already taking stock of the commercial landscape to detect whether the new law has met its creators’ lofty aims.

The Government’s rationale for replacing the Companies Act 1985 was to create a modern and simple legal framework that neither acts as an obstacle to the way companies operate nor stifles entrepreneurship. In particular, the focus was on a “think small first” approach, deregulation and promoting a long-term investment culture.

Lord Mandelson unveils internet pirates suspension plan

Times: Internet pirates who offend repeatedly will face a series of sanctions that could end with being disconnected, Lord Mandelson said yesterday.

The Business Secretary said that he would introduce a Bill that legislated for disconnection next month.

Carphone Warehouse, the owner of Talk Talk and Britain’s largest internet service provider, reacted by saying that it would mount a legal challenge on the basis that internet access was a human right.

Why a criminal lawyer should be the next Justice of the Supreme Court

Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, QC in The Times: The candidacy for the twelfth justice of the UK Supreme Court — the first appointment since the court began its life earlier this month — is under way.

The appointment has been advertised and the new justice will be independently selected. Uniquely, the process of selection has aroused considerable interest in both public and professional circles.

The task for a panel chaired by Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the President of the Court, and including a member from each of the Judicial Appointments Commissions of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, is to choose a candidate on merit, with the additional aim of producing diversity within the court.

There is a strong assumption within the portals of the Royal Courts of Justice and The Temple that all appointments should be exclusively from within the ranks of the 38 Court of Appeal judges and the president of the court, the Master of the Rolls. Hence there is friendly but stout opposition to the appointment, widely canvassed, of Jonathan Sumption, QC, an outstanding practitioner, as well as being a distinguished medieval historian.

Modernisers of the system of judicial appointments claim that the members of the highest court in the land should come from among those well experienced in appellate judicial work. The problem is that the claim is not so well founded in historical fact…….

MoD probes soldier’s Facebook ‘Nazi salute’

Independent: The Ministry of Defence was investigating today after a picture posted on Facebook appeared to show a soldier performing a Nazi-style salute.

A picture of Private Craig Orwin, 19, was posted on the social networking site showing a defiant Hitler-style Nazi salute, the Sun reported.

Pte Orwin serves with the Light Dragoons.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said: “We are investigating an incident and if rules have been broken, appropriate disciplinary action will be taken.

“Members of the Armed Forces are free to join any political party but any racist behaviour or breach of the Army’s values and standards will be dealt with robustly.”

His unit is based in Swanton Morley, Norfolk. It has twice served in Iraq and also completed a six-month tour of Afghanistan.

Pte Orwin was unavailable for comment today.

One million workers to lose final salary pension schemes

Telegraph: Figures published by the Office for National Statistics show 100,000 private sector final salary schemes closed last year, leaving numbers at a record low of 2.6 million.

The rate at which workers are losing their entitlements is likely to be double that over the next five years, according towealth managers Hargreaves Lansdown.

Brussels to split up Britain’s high street banks

Times: The European Commission will today approve the Government’s plan to split off the viable part of Northern Rock and sell it. Neelie Kroes, the Competition Commissioner, will allow the injection of £3 billion of taxpayers’ money into the part of the bank that contains depositors, branches and some “good” loans.

Some higher-quality home loans will be retained in the rump “bad bank” and remain in state hands. The “good” part of Rock will be handed to UK Financial Investments, the Treasury-controlled unit that owns bank stakes, by the turn of the year with instructions to sell it as soon as possible with the proviso that taxpayers get value for money. That raises the possibility that a deal could go through before the election.

The Government has not ruled out turning Northern Rock into a building society owned by its customers, although the overwhelming preference, according to people within the Treasury, is for a sale. Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, wants a new entrant into the market rather than the remutualisation of Northern Rock, which will report third-quarter results next week.

Security services ask for secret evidence

Times: British intelligence services made an unprecedented request to a High Court judge yesterday to use secret evidence in defending a civil claim alleging they were complicit in the ill-treatment of former Guantanamo Bay detainees.

In a move that breaks legal ground, MI5, MI6 and their Government departments asked Mr Justice Silber to rule that although this “closed” procedure had never been used before in a civil damages claim, there was no reason in principle why it should not be used if necessary for “the just disposal of the case”.

The alternative would be to “strike out” the claim launched by seven former detainees, lawyers for the intelligence services argued.

The claimaints – Binyam Mohamed, Bisher Al Rawi, Jamil El Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg and Martin Mubanga – allege that MI5 and MI6 were guilty of aiding and abetting their unlawful imprisonment and extraordinary rendition to various locations around the world, including Guantanamo.

MPs’ expenses: demand for inquiry into how report was leaked

Telegraph: Roger Gale, the MP for Thanet North in Kent, has demanded an inquiry into how the details of Sir Christopher Kelly’s report into MPs’ expenses was leaked.

Mandelson to press on with cutting internet links for download pirates

Times: Lord Mandelson will say today that he intends to press ahead with controversial measures to cut off the internet connections of people caught downloading pirated music, films or television programmes.

The Business Secretary plans to introduce legislation to ensure that serial pirates will have their home internet services “suspended” for short periods as the flagship measure of next month’s Digital Economy Bill.

It is understood that a service would be disconnected only after a series of offences, with initial breaches incurring warning letters and subsequent contraventions penalised by “throttling” internet connections to reduce download speeds.

Lord Mandelson’s intervention — to be made in a speech this morning to creative industries executives — comes after months of pressure from the music industry, led by Lucian Grainge, chief executive of Universal Music.

Councils get ‘Al Capone’ power to seize assets over minor offences

Times: Draconian police powers designed to deprive crime barons of luxury lifestyles are being extended to councils, quangos and agencies to use against the public, The Times has learnt.

The right to search homes, seize cash, freeze bank accounts and confiscate property will be given to town hall officials and civilian investigators employed by organisations as diverse as Royal Mail, the Rural Payments Agency and Transport for London.

The measure, being pushed through by Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, comes into force next week and will deploy some of the most powerful tools available to detectives against fare dodgers, families in arrears with council tax and other minor offenders.

The radical extension of the Proceeds of Crime Act, through a Statutory Instrument which is not debated by parliament, has been condemned by the chairman of the Police Federation. Paul McKeever said that he was shocked to learn that the decision to hand over “intrusive powers” to people who were not police was made without consultation or debate.

Statutory Instruments are often used to slip through controversial laws

Times: Most people assume that parliamentary approval involves MPs trooping through division lobbies to signal their assent on a piece of legislation.

But this only accounts for a small proportion of the laws passed by Parliament.

The vast majority of new laws, about 3,500 every year, come in the form of Statutory Instruments (SI), small pieces of legislation already governed by other Acts of Parliament and subject to far weaker scrutiny.

In principle, this isn’t in itself worrying. — why waste the bulk of MPs’ time on diverting the A11 so that traffic works can take place or changing legislation to reflect a name from “Kosovo under the Interim Administration of the United Nations Mission” to “Republic of Kosovo”.

Lord Chief Justice warns of ‘mayhem’ over lack of legal aid for civil courts

Times: The Lord Chief Justice has warned of ”mayhem” if people involved in disputes are priced out of the civil court system because legal aid is not available.

Marco Pierre White allowed to sue London lawyers over seizure of papers by wife

Times: Marco Pierre White, the TV chef, can proceed with suing a top London firm of divorce lawyers after senior judges ruled that they had a case to answer over the seizure of his private documents.

Lord Justice Ward questioned the legal advice given to the chef’s estranged wife, Mati, that she could take certain documents that she found in the matrimonial home.

The judge said that there seemed at least to be a case for the defendants, the law firm Withers, to answer.

‘Coincidence’ that intern looked up insider dealing

Times: A City intern accused of leaking the details of a series of takeovers told a court today that he researched insider trading on the internet the night before his father made a crucial share purchase because he was following up on office gossip.

Matthew Uberoi, accused of deliberately passing inside information to his father Neel, said he researched insider trading on the evening of May 29, 2006 because he had heard his employer, Hoare Govett, had been involved with an incident.

The next morning Neel bought shares in Neutec Pharmaceuticals, a company advised by Matthew’s team at Hoare Govett that was about be taken over causing its share price to more than double.