We are delighted to announce that David Stephenson has been nominated in the category of Employment Junior of the Year.
The awards will take place on Thursday 26 October 2017 at the London Hilton on Park Lane. The full list of nominations is available here.
The Supreme Court has granted permission to appeal in Pimlico Plumbers v Smith [2017] EWCA Civ 51 – a case concerning whether the respondent Mr Smith was a ‘worker’ within the meaning of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and Regulation 2 of the Working Time Regulations 1998, and whether he was in ’employment’ within s.83(2)(a) of the Equality Act 2010.
The case is significant as it presents an opportunity for the Supreme Court to consider the issue of ‘gig economy’ jobs. As the Court of Appeal put it: “The case puts a spotlight on a business model under which operatives are intended to appear to clients of the business as working for the business, but at the same time the business itself seeks to maintain that, as between itself and its operatives, there is a legal relationship of client or customer and independent contractor rather than employer and employee or worker”.
1MCB Chambers’ David Stephenson acted as junior counsel for Mr Smith.
Neelim Sultan has been invited to speak at a seminar jointly hosted by the International Bar Association and Arab International Women’s Form (AIWF), titled ‘Advancing gender equality in law and the professions’. Neelim will be discussing how the legal professions can develop women- and family-friendly working cultures.
The event will be held on 19th September 2017 at the London Bankside offices of Boodle Hatfield.
On 28 July 2017, the High Court (Irwin LJ and Foskett J) dismissed an appeal by the Government of Rwanda against the Senior District Judge’s decision to refuse the extradition of five men to Rwanda. Their extradition was sought in order that they be tried for mass crimes arising out of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Iain Edwards was instructed as junior counsel for the third Respondent.
This is the latest decision in a case going back to 2007 when a hearing on a first request for extradition resulted in the government of Rwanda’s request being granted. That decision was successfully appealed to the Divisional Court in 2009 where it was found that there would be a real risk of a flagrant denial of justice if the men were extradited to Rwanda.
A second extradition request was made by the government of Rwanda in April 2013. The hearing before the SDJ lasted for 66 days and there were over 23,000 pages of evidence. In its judgment, the Divisional Court described the case as a “truly formidable undertaking.” The SDJ declined to order extradition despite the government of Rwanda’s submissions that the system of justice in Rwanda had undergone a ‘sea-change’ and that no national or international court had refused to extradite, transfer or deport to Rwanda since 2009. The Respondents cross-appealed on a number of additional matters.
The Divisional Court found that “the evidence suggests that Rwanda has, if anything, become more of an illiberal and authoritarian state than was the case in 2008/2009” and that “there is sufficient material to show a real risk of political pressure and political interference in the justice system in Rwanda.” The Court concluded: “In respect of all Respondents, we consider the Senior District Judge was correct in her conclusion that, if extradited, they would be at risk of a flagrant denial of fair trial. We conclude as of the date of this judgment that remains the case”.
The government of Rwanda has, exceptionally, been given a final opportunity to persuade the Court that conditions will be put in place sufficient to overcome the bar to extradition.
John Benson QC and Salma Lalani successfully defended a young man charged with murder at The Old Bailey recently. Jordan Archambie was one of five men indicted for the murder of Raja Ali by stabbing in September 2016. The prosecution alleged that Mr Archambie and three other accused were members of a drug gang and that the deceased was the senior figure in a rival drug gang. The fifth accused was alleged to have set up the attack by arranging to meet the deceased at a certain time and place in Dagenham – information which was then passed to the other defendants. The prosecution alleged that Archambie had a knife and was responsible for the killing. The challenges in the case increased when two of the co-defendants sought to blame Archambie. CCTV captured much of the incident and, so the prosecution asserted, showed Archambie with a knife. At the conclusion of a seven week trial Jordan Archambie was acquitted of murder – a verdict which demonstrated that the jury could not be sure that he had a knife. He was convicted of manslaughter and of violent disorder on his own admission.
Ariane Adam has returned to chambers having worked at the legal action charity Reprieve between September 2016 and June 2017. Ariane led Reprieve’s work in Malawi assisting prisoners benefiting from the decision in Kafantayeni & Others v The Attorney General of Malawi (Constitutional Case No. 12 of 2005), by which the mandatory death sentence was ruled unconstitutional. She worked with the Malawi Human Rights Commission, the Legal Aid Bureau and other local partners to secure new sentences for 51 prisoners; 24 of these individuals received custodial sentences that led to their immediate release.
Ariane further identified and advised Reprieve on opportunities to support regional efforts to abolish the death penalty in Malawi and Uganda. She represented the organisation in high level advocacy meetings with governments, intergovernmental bodies and other actors. She also facilitated the provision of training to regional actors and NGOs on minimum standards on the application of the death penalty, mental health as mitigation, and engagement with human rights instruments.
Ariane will continue to assist Reprieve in developing training materials for advocates and human rights defenders in South and East African countries, whilst continuing to accept instructions in the areas of immigration and asylum, housing, community care, employment and discrimination, and international human rights.
Members of the 1MCB housing team have been helping with the response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Nick Bano has written about Grenfell for The Justice Gap.
There is still a need for volunteers – please register here if you are a lawyer with expertise in housing, employment, immigration, welfare benefits, criminal law, personal injury, inquests, fire regulations, building controls, health & safety, or public law.
Michael Chambers represented a defendant who had been targeted by the vigilante group ‘Dark Justice’. The defendant – a gay man – had been drawn into conversations with members of the group on the dating app Grindr. The group engaged him in explicit conversations, posing as a 14-year-old, and arranged to meet him. The group then used threatening and intimidating language and filmed his confession. The police were called and arrested the defendant.
Following a one-week trial at Blackfriars Crown Court the Defendant, a 32-year-old man with no previous convictions, wept in the dock when he heard the unanimous ‘not guilty’ verdict.
Chambers is very sad to announce the recent death of Patricia Farnon. Pat joined 1MCB Chambers in 2013 and prior to that had been a member of Tooks Chambers, and before that a tenant at 1 Pump Court.
After being called to the Bar in 1986, Pat practised mainly in crime for the first seven years of her career. Thereafter, she specialised in family law, predominantly care proceedings, representing parents, grandparents, guardians, older children, interveners and local authorities. Throughout her career Pat dealt with many long-running and complex cases, often involving thorny family backgrounds, serious allegations or international aspects. Pat was deeply committed to the publicly funded Bar, and to providing a first-class service to every client, whether lay or professional, regardless of their background or means. She was especially well-known at the family Bar for her empathy and compassion, and was frequently asked to represent clients with mental health issues, personality disorders or learning disabilities who required particularly sensitive representation.
Away from work, Pat was also great company, and much loved by us for her frankness, keen wit, sense of humour and generosity.
We have lost a great friend and colleague and offer our many condolences to her family at this difficult time.
On Tuesday, 13 June 2017 the retrial in the case of Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović will open before the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, Netherlands. Iain Edwards is instructed as counsel defending Mr Stanišić, who was the head of the Serbian state security service within the Ministry of Internal Affairs between 1991 and 1998 and is charged with persecution, murder, deportation and forcible transfer as crimes against humanity, and murder as a war crime. Mr Stanišić is being retried after he was acquitted on all counts before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The case is temporally and geographically broad in scope, alleging crimes committed against Croat, Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb civilian populations within large areas of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Balkan wars between 1991 and 1995.
R v K, Blackfriars Crown Court, May 2017
David Parvin successfully defended a client charged with serious allegations of historic child sex abuse dating back to the 1980s. The Crown’s case, which was prosecuted by queen’s counsel, relied on evidence of the initial complaint made during the complainant’s ABE interview. However, through careful cross-examination of the complainant and other prosecution witnesses, David was able to highlight significant inconsistencies that ultimately undermined the reliability of the evidence. The jury returned unanimous not guilty verdicts.
Gwawr Thomas returns to chambers following her secondment to Onyango & Co. Advocates in Kampala, Uganda. Gwawr was attached to the firm’s public interest litigation department, which enjoys a formidable caseload of human rights and constitutional law matters and a particular reputation for its high profile work with Uganda’s LGBTI community.
Gwawr worked on a number of important constitutional petitions and public interest cases, including
Together with colleagues at the firm, Gwawr was also tasked with conducting an independent investigation into the break in at Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF)’s premises, during which a security guard was killed. HRAPF had challenged the legality of Uganda’s Anti Homosexuality Act 2014 before the East African Court of Justice.
