News

Criminal defence work may be a tough gig, but for an aspiring writer of crime fiction it has one key draw: it throws up a huge amount of material to work from. Indeed, when Russel & Aitken partner William McIntyre decided to turn his hand to novel writing a little over a decade ago he found he h

Andrew Stevenson, Secretary of the Scottish Law Agents Society (SLAS) criticises attacks on “leftie lawyers” made by Boris Johnson and Priti Patel at this year’s Conservative Party Conference. Human rights are not an academic’s plaything or a means of chicanery or obstruction

Fred Mackintosh QC successfully represented the Cockburn Association, the New Town and Broughton Community Council and the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust, at a public inquiry into the appeals submitted by developers against the decisions by the City of Edinburgh Council to refuse their applicat

In the thirtieth article in Scottish Legal News' jurisprudential primer series, Benjamin Bestgen takes a look at fictional legal systems. See his last entry here. Early readers of this series may recall my article about depictions of law in utopian fiction. What stood out was that utopian write

A relative of Zimbabwe's president has been arrested at Robert Gabriel Mugabe Airport in Harare after she allegedly tried to smuggle 14 bars of gold onto a flight to Dubai. On Monday, airport scanners picked up 6kg of gold valued at £280,000 in the handbag of Henrietta Rushwaya, who is head of

The Edinburgh Tax Network, in conjunction with CIOT and Terra Firma Chambers, will present a talk entitled ‘Tax Issues on Importing and Exporting - post 1 January 2021’ on 5 November 2020 from 1pm to 2pm. The speaker, Matthew Paul Clark, LL.B, LL.M. (Liverpool), PwC Director and Head of

A woman who argued it was unlawful to distinguish between Statutory Maternity Pay and state Maternity Allowance when calculating how much a person should receive in Universal Credit has failed in her claim before an English court. Taylor Moore had recently changed jobs when she commenced matern

Prompt action is needed by the Scottish government to reform the law of crofting, the Law Society of Scotland has said. In a report, the Law Society sets out recommendations detailing proposed solutions to issues in four areas of crofting law: aspects of succession, owner occupier status, statutory

A new legally binding instrument to protect lawyers should be drafted as soon as possible, the Council of Europe (CoE) has said in a new report. The principles and guarantees of advocates, published by the CoE's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, reiterates the need for a 'European convent

A former Deputy First Minister of Scotland has been chosen to be the next moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Lord Wallace of Tankerness QC, Jim Wallace, will become the Kirk’s ambassador at home and abroad next May.

Amy Coney Barrett has been sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States days before the election in a move that will tip the balance of the court to the right for years to come.

The number of homicide cases recorded by the police in Scotland increased by three per cent, or two cases, from 62 to 64 between 2018-19 and 2019-20, the latest data from Scotland’s chief statistician show. Elswhere the report shows:

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Dunkeld has been fined for health and safety failings which led to the death of a vulnerable care home resident at a property in Dundee. Dundee Sheriff Court was told that in the early hours of 30 May 2017, a 94-year-old man fell nearly 30 feet from a second floor windo

Scottish Legal News is pleased to report that our sister publication, Scottish Construction Now, has passed a significant milestone breaking through the 10,000 subscribers mark to its free daily newsletter with over 140,000 unique visitors to the www.scottishconstructionnow.com  website each mo

Thieves have stolen half a tonne of grapes from a vineyard, the equivalent of 350 bottles of white wine, or £3,300. When workers arrived at the Coteau Rougemont vineyard in a wooded area in Quebec, Canada, there was nothing left to pick.