News

To mark Black History Month, SLN is dedicating its ‘Our Legal Heritage’ feature to Scotland’s black history. As a child he was fed from a trough along with the other enslaved children on the plantation and regularly whipped, but Frederick Douglass would grow to become one of the mo

The Court of Appeal of England and Wales has rejected a challenge to the equalisation of the state pension age for men and women by two women who had their pension age increased to 66 as a result of legislative changes made between 1995 and 2011.  Julie Delve and Karen Glynn

The Glasgow Bar Association (GBA) said it is "astonished" that the Scottish government has not yet offered any financial support for legal aid firms "despite what has now been months of consideration of the profession’s proposals". In a letter to Holyrood's Justice Committee, the GBA note

Parliament may get legal powers to summon obstinate witnesses like Dominic Cummings and Rupert Murdoch to answer MPs' questions, the chair of a Commons committee has said. Chris Bryant, chair of the Committee of Privileges, said a report that will be released this year will detail plans to compel wi

Miners convicted of certain offences relating to the strike in 1984-85 will be pardoned, Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf has announced. John Scott QC’s independent review of the impact of policing on communities during the strike recommends that, subject to establishing suitable criteria, the S

Rape complainants in Ireland questioned about their sexual history will have legal representation at trial, under new reforms announced by the country's Justice Minister, Helen McEntee. The measure is among changes meant to improve complainants' experience of the justice system detailed in the

A lifetime achievement award is to be presented to Ian Forrester QC, the former judge of the General Court of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Mr Forrester will be honoured at the 2020 Scottish Legal Awards on Wednesday, 4 November, which will be broadcast live online.

Only a handful of British families are now detained in north east Syria, a new report shows, "undermining" the UK government’s position that these families cannot be brought back to the UK. Government sources implied last year that over 300 British nationals might still be imprisoned in north

The Lord Justice General has appointed Sheriff Principal Craig Turnbull and Matt Jackson QC to fill vacant positions on the Scottish Sentencing Council. Sheriff Principal Turnbull replaces Sheriff Principal Ian Abercrombie following his retirement earlier this year. Mr Jackson has been appointed as

Dr Thomas Muinzer details the work of the Scottish Climate Emergency Legal Network this year. Since its inaugural meeting at the Legal Services Agency, Glasgow, on January 20 at the beginning of this year, the Scottish Climate Emergency Legal Network (SCELN) has been meeting on a regular basis, enga

CMS Scotland has announced it will award scholarships to support three aspiring law students. As part of an annual UK-wide initiative, the firm awards £2,500 each year to a high-performing Scottish state school pupil from an economically disadvantaged background while they are completing their

A woman impersonated a prosecutor in order to file fake documents with a court that declared a stalking and drug possession case against her had been dropped. Lisa Landon, 33, of Littleton, a town in New Hampshire, attracted the attention of prosecutors after a state forensic examiner who was to per

An appeal by a divorcing husband against the financial provision aspect of his divorce on the ground that the Lord Ordinary had miscalculated the amount payable has been refused by the Inner House of the Court of Session. The defender and reclaimer, MMA, argued that the Lord Ordinary had e

The actions of the UK government during the coronavirus emergency this year bear the hallmarks of authoritarianism, Lord Sumption has warned. The former Supreme Court justice noted that authoritarian government promotes "loyalty at the expense of wisdom and flattery at the expense of objective advic

Concerns have been raised by the Faculty of Advocates about a safety omission in plans for automated vehicles on motorways. Cars fitted with an Automated Lane Keeping System (ALKS) could be controlled by computer for extended periods in slow-moving motorway traffic, allowing, for the first time, mot