News

The Scottish Legal Action Group (SCOLAG) has responded to plans to allow first-year criminal defence trainees to appear in court because of dwindling practitioner numbers. Recent media reporting indicates that plans are afoot to amend the current rules governing when trainee solicitors are able to a

Following the news that the Crown Office is to receive a cash injection to recruit more lawyers and staff, calls have been made for the Scottish government to do the same in the legal aid sector. Ian Moir, of the Law Society of Scotland's Legal Aid Committee, said that since the government has been

The Scottish Law Commission’s Report on Moveable Transactions proposed reform for assignation of receivables, rents and other claims; and for a new form of fixed security interest over corporeal moveables, intellectual property, shares and other financial instruments. Since its publication in

Rebecca Ablett serves up a two-course dish of intellectual property delights from Luxembourg. The IP world has been cooking up quite a storm this summer with two particularly interesting cases featuring on last month’s menu for the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “CJEU”

Prisoners who smoke are to be offered vaping kits for free ahead of a ban on tobacco in jails this autumn. The proposal is part of a plan to help inmates give up smoking and will cost about £200,000.

A Russian national, a publisher and a religious association suffered a violation of their ECHR right to freedom of expression, the European Court of Human Rights has unanimously held. The case concerned anti-extremism legislation in Russia and a ban on publishing and distributing Islamic books.

A group of brave lawyers from Edinburgh have taken on a daring stunt, leaping from a 150ft platform to zip-line across the River Clyde in support of specialist charity Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus Scotland (SBH Scotland).

Calls have been made to refer Burmese military figures involved in human rights abuses to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Findings of the UN independent fact-finding mission into human rights abuses in Burma were welcomed by the Burma Human Rights Network, which called on the UK an

A man convicted of smuggling around £130,000 worth of gold out of the Royal Canadian Mint in his rectum has been granted a reduced fine on appeal. Leston Lawrence, 35, was fined around £147,500 last February by Justice Doody after being convicted of stealing the nugget-sized pieces of go

The Law Society of Scotland is drawing up plans to allow first-year trainee criminal lawyers to appear in court because there are too few entrants to the criminal legal aid sector, The Times reports. There are currently between 25 and 30 trainees at criminal legal aid firms, in addition to those at

Improvements to plans for an opt-out organ donation system have been suggested by the Faculty of Advocates to MSPs. The Faculty called for annual publicity campaigns so new residents in Scotland were always kept informed about the policy of deemed consent.

The number of civil cases in Scotland initiated in 2016-17 was the lowest since records began in 2008-09, with a drop of 44 per cent since that year. The latest civil justice statistics, published by Scotland’s Chief Statistician today also record a 48 per cent drop in cases at the Court of Se

Further options to deliver the devolution of railway policing to Scotland are to be explored, the Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf has said. The decision comes following recent advice from Police Scotland around the practicalities of a number of issues and timing of implementation, particularly r