Law in Action

Following a Court of Appeal ruling this week about a case referred to the senior judges by the Attorney General, those charged with criminal damage for actions like throwing red paint at a building as a protest, can no longer use a certain defence to be acquitted. Parliament had intended the defence for different circumstances. Protesters used to be able to claim that had the owners of the damaged property known of the reasons fo...

How do we prevent young people from becoming involved in knife crime? Joshua speaks to 'Jay' who began carrying a knife in his early teens before being helped to change his perspective, and his life.

We explore the link between school exclusions and crime, and hear that workshops using graphic evidence to deter young people from carrying a knife can be counterproductive.

We also find out about innovative policing methods to dete...

The Post Office scandal is one of the UK's most widespread miscarriages of justice, with hundreds of people wrongfully convicted of theft or false accounting. In most of these cases, the Post Office was the investigator, prosecutor and the alleged victim.

Did Post Office lawyers act unethically by failing to disclose evidence that might have helped the people they were prosecuting? Might they face criminal proceedings for attempting...

Can juries acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience? For example, if people are accused of causing criminal damage as part of a protest, could the jury find them innocent despite the judge's directions? Joshua speaks to Clive Dolphin from Defend our Juries; Richard Vogler, Professor of Comparative Criminal Law & Criminal Justice, University of Sussex, and Tana Adkin KC, Chair of the Criminal Bar Association.

There are curre...

What if someone uses AI to create a fake version of your voice for their own aims? Recently, the actor, broadcaster and writer Stephen Fry found that someone had recreated his voice to narrate a documentary without his knowledge. What does the law have to say about deepfakes? What are your rights, and in which circumstances could someone be sued, or prosecuted? Associate solicitor Oliver Lock of Farrer & Co explains what the l...

Last week, the House of Commons Justice Select Committee published a wide-ranging report about sentencing and public opinion. On the one hand, it said we shouldn't ignore what people think. On the other hand, MPs found that many people didn’t understand how sentencing worked. The justice committee's own research confirmed this lack of understanding. The committee's chair, the Conservative MP Sir Bob Neill, also points out the cost ...

Following the events of the 7th October in which around 1400 people were killed in Israel and over 200 taken hostage, Israel has been striking back against Hamas in Gaza. What does international law say about self-defence and proportionate responses to attacks? Joshua Rozenberg asks expert Professor Guglielmo Verdirame KC of Kings College.

The government is proposing to rent prison space abroad, due to a risk of prison overcrowdin...

The new Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk KC MP speaks to Joshua Rozenberg. How does he respond to criticisms levelled at the reforms of the Parole Board proposed in the Victims and Prisoners Bill? And how does he reconcile his wish to "provide individuals with the due process which is the hallmark of our legal system" with some aspects of the Home Office's Illegal Migration Bill, that aims to stop peop...

Is the Parole Board getting it right with prisoner releases? Last year, the then Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Dominic Raab thought not, and introduced reform proposals to, as he saw it, re-prioritise public protection and trust in justice. These proposals are in the Victims and Prisoners Bill that's now before parliament. But the Parole Board tell Joshua Rozenberg that public protection is their top priority a...

The law is having to deal with new challenges due to climate change. Is it a human right to be protected from global warming? Do the 46 member states of the Council of Europe have to reduce carbon emissions faster to protect their citizens' right to life? The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has been asked to rule on these questions. We hear about the case of the Swiss 'Klimaseniorinnen', elderly women arguing that c...

Conviction rates for rape trials are lower than those for other criminal trials, and the court experience can be intrusive and harrowing for survivors. The Law Commission of England and Wales (the independent body that advises the government on law reform), has just published a new consultation paper for how to change this. Criminal law commissioner Prof Penney Lewis, and before her Independent Sexual Violence Adviser Annabelle Ed...

For a special edition recorded on location in Belfast, Joshua Rozenberg returns to Northern Ireland 25 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, which he reported on at the time. Meeting old contacts and new, he finds out what it took to get the negotiations over the line and what legacy the ground-breaking peace deal has had. He also hears about the challenges involved in achieving justice for the murders that remain ...

New evidence shows that if a rape case actually comes to court, then - despite popular perceptions - juries are more likely to convict than not, says Professor Cheryl Thomas of UCL.

The UK’s forensic science used to be considered the gold standard, but no longer. The risk of miscarriages of justice is growing. And now a new Westminster Commission is trying to find out what went wrong. Joshua talks to its co-chair, leading forensi...

There are strikes again this week, by junior doctors, and train and tube drivers. The government's Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) bill aims to require sectors like health, education and transport to provide a "minimum" of services even on strike days. It would let employers, including government departments, issue "work notices" - lists of which staff have to work on strike days. But how will they decide who should be on the "wo...

A year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Joshua asks Attorney General Victoria Prentis MP and Professor Philippe Sands KC how the law can help to deliver justice for Ukraine. Could Russia's leaders be tried for the crime of aggression?

What can be done about the form of potentially abusive litigation known as a SLAPP?

Plus, we meet the Ukrainian lawyers brining their skills to the UK.

Presenter: Joshua Rozenberg Producer: Diane R...

The international lawyer Robert Spano, originally from Iceland, has just completed his nine-year stint as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. For the last two and half of those nine years, he was the president of the court. In an exclusive interview with Joshua Rozenberg, he shares his thoughts on the relationship between the UK and the ECHR, on the Justice Secretary Dominic Raab’s planned Bill of Rights,...

Is the UK on a collision course with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg? So far the UK's relationship with the ECHR has been a good one, and the UK has proportionately fewer cases before the court than the other 45 member states. But might Justice Secretary Dominic Raab's Bill of Rights bill change that? Former judge Robert Spano, the president of the ECHR until last month, speaks to Joshua Rozenberg.

Is it time to i...

Climate change activists have caused a lot of disruption over the past year, and recently also made headlines with stunts like throwing tomato soup at a Van Gogh painting in the National Gallery. The government's response has been to tighten up protest law; first in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and now in the Public Order bill currently going through Parliament. What is and isn't illegal now? What could become ...

The government is currently committed to a bonfire of laws which were inherited from the EU after Brexit - including things like the right to four weeks' paid annual leave. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill 2022 requires government departments to check over 2400 laws; then decide which ones to keep, which ones to amend, and which ones to let disappear from the statute books. Those chosen to be kept or amended will ha...