Those who were violent, intimidating or broke their tenancy agreements would not be allowed to live in the city’s council houses, he said.. The following notes of judgments were prepared by the reporters of the All England Law Reports. Children
Re F (a minor); CA (Neill, Waite, Peter Gibson LJJ); 16 Nov 1994.A father’s defence solicitor was entitled to interview the sons to discover from them how much, if anything, they had seen of an alleged assault by the father of their mother which was the subject of criminal proceedings against the father.The boys would clearly want to be spared the ordeal of such an interview, but that had to be weighed against the advantage of a fair trial for the father.Stephen Bellamy (Wolferstans, Sherwell) for the mother; Sally Porter (Hartnell & Co, Exeter) for the father.ContemptBokhari v Blessed; CA (Sir Thomas Bingham MR, Hobhouse, Morritt LJJ); 7 Nov 1994.Section 118 of the County Courts Act 1984, which empowered a county court judge to imprison or fine any person who wilfully insulted a witness in court, or in going to or returning from the court, applied not only to proceedings in open court but also toarbitration proceedings before a district judge in chambers.Aditya Sen (CM Atif & Co) for the appellant; Jonathan McManus (Treasury Solicitor) as amicus curiae.CostsMcFarlane v EE Caledonia Ltd; QBD (Longmore J); 11 Nov 1994.The court could order a non-party, in this case Quantum Claims Compensation Specialists Ltd, a company established as a vehicle for handling personal injury claims on a contingency fee basis, to pay the costs of the successful defendant (formerly Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Ltd), owners of the Piper Alpha oil rig, in an action for damages for psychiatric injury allegedly caused when the rig was involved in a disastrous explosion and fire, which action had been brought by the plaintiff, a painter who had been working on the rig and who, having no means of financing the action himself, had retained Quantum’s services to finance his claim.The agreement between Quantum, the maintainer of the action, and the plaintiff made no allowance for the payment by Quantum of the costs of a successful adverse party and was, therefore, tainted with illegality as a matter of English law, quite apart from the additional illegality which arose from the champertous nature of the agreement. That furnished a cogent reason why, in the court’s discretion, Quantum should be made to pay the successful defendant’s costs.Jonathan Waite (Levinson Gray) for Quantum; Alistair Schaff (Ince & Co) for the defendant.DiscriminationSmith v Safeway plc; EAT (Pill J, Mrs R Chapman, Mr DAC Lambert); 9 Dec 1994.For the purposes of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, a male delicatessen assistant was treated less favourably than a female assistant when he was dismissed because the length of his hair (he had a ponytail) contravened the employer’s rules for the appearance of male delicatessen staff.

Unlike other requirements as to dress and appearance (eg that a woman should wear a skirt: see Schmidt v Austicks Bookshops Ltd [1978] ICR 85), a restriction on hair length had effect not only during working hours but atall times. To make such a distinction was clearly detrimental and fundamentally unfair to men.Peter Bibby (Free Representation Unit) for the employee; Christopher Jeans (Cartwrights, Bristol) for the employer.JuryR v Young (Stephen); CA (Cr Div) (Lord Taylor CJ, Waterhouse, Bell JJ); 17 Nov 1994.While it was an offence under s 8 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 for anyone to inquire into the deliberations of a jury in considering their verdict in the jury room, that did not prevent the Court of Appeal inquiring what happened at an hotel where the jury had been accommodated overnight.D Penry-Davey QC, Stephen Holt (Registrar of Criminal Appeals) for the appellant; Michael Lawson QC, Peter W Clarke (CPS) for the Crown; Dorian Lovell-Pank (Treasury Solicitor) as amicus curiae.. Ministers have been warned that the industrial tribunal system is in danger of seizing up after a wave of applications from part-time workers claiming full pension rights. Since a critical European ruling, tribunals have been inundated with 40,000 cases, 30,000 of which were launched in the fortnight before Christmas. The overwhelming majority of applications came from women, a majority of the five million part-timers in Britain.
In recent years, industrial tribunals have been processing about 60,000 cases a year and it is feared that the system will not be able to cope with the added workload.Unions have warned that there are thousands more cases in the pipeline.In September, the European Court of Justice ruled that it was unlawful to exclude part-timers from company pension schemes and that they could claim benefits as far back as 1976.The Government expressed fears at the time that industrial tribunals would not be able to deal with the new workload and warned that the judgment would deter firms from taking on part-time workers.All the big unions have delivered claims, including Unison, the public services’ union, the Transport & General and Bifu, the banking union with a large female membership.Bifu alone has lodged 2,500 applications and Ed Sweeney, its deputy general secretary, said employers were trying to use part-time staff as cheap labour and must now pay the price. “We’ve put a lot of effort into identifying part-timers affected by this discrimination and we want members who think they’re covered to contact us.”More than 1,300 claims cover current and former staff at the TSB, which did not admit part-timers who worked less than 18 hours a week to its pension scheme until 1991. Mr Sweeney, however, said that all the high street banks were involved, as were many building societies.”The employers could short-circuit this whole exercise by agreeing to backdate all pensionable service.

They can afford to do that in the finance industry.” Otherwise, the Government should put more resources into the tribunal system to help with “an avalanche” of claims.. The equality group Opportunity 2000 has encountered “male chauvinism” on a grand scale in Scotland, according to sources close to the organisation. Of all the regions in the United Kingdom, Scotland is the most resistant to the promotion of women to senior positions in industry, the source said.
The pressure group, which enjoys John Major’s support, has experienced considerable difficulties in recruiting senior directors of Scottish firms to provide leadership.Despite the group’s growing appeal in England and Wales, where it has 277 members, Opportunity 2000 has only 13 members in Scotland and, of these, most are in the public or financial sectors.The source said: “Most Scottish businessmen seem to think the woman’s place is in the kitchen.” Industry there is controlled by a “male Mafia”, the source said, adding that Scotsmen were fairly misogynistic.Pat Corcoran, Opportunity 2000 campaign director, believes the situation will improve with economic recovery and as Scottish firms become more aware of the campaign. The organisation has also recruited Charles Barker, the public relations company, to boost their efforts. Ms Corcoran distanced herself from the assertions made by the source, but conceded: “There is strong resistance in Scotland to the idea that women have the right to be in a workplace.”Opportunity 2000 has also encountered difficulties is Northern Ireland.

The source, however, said it was more understandable in the Province, where male unemployment had stood at 25 per cent for many years.In its annual report last autumn, Opportunity 2000 argued that one of the main obstacles it faced was the attitude of women themselves. Many, it said, object to being seen as “a special case”.Some at the organisation believe that the campaign had run into the sand, partly because of the recession and partly because of a “backlash” from men.nBusiness In The Community, the organisation which launch-ed Opportunity 2000, is to establish Race for Opportunity, a group to promote a similar programme on behalf of ethnic minorities.. One hot winter’s morning in Upington, a bone-dry town on the southern fringes of the Kalahari, Justice Bekebeke stood up in court to address Justice J J Basson Mr Bekebeke had been baptised “Justice”. The judge had acquired the title after years of service in the South African legal profession Mr Bekebeke was being tried for murder. Mr Justice Basson was preparing to condemn him – and 13 others – to death. The Upington 14 were deemed by the judge to have shared “common purpose” in the murder of a black policeman in November 1985. Three and a half years on, each of the 14 was taking it in turns to accept the opportunity courteously provided by the legal system to make a last statement to the judge before sentence.

They knew, for their lawyers had warned them in advance, that Justice Basson would order their execution. They had no reason then to imagine that within three years they would all be freed on appeal.
Mr Bekebeke, aged perhaps 25, looked Justice Basson in the eye and,: “In a country like South Africa I wonder how justice can really be applied. I used to think that, even as a black man, I had access to real justice But I haven’t found it. So, well, mylord, what I would like to ask is: Let’s forget our racial hatred, let’s apply justice for all humanity. We are striving for each and every racial group to live in harmony Is it possible? Never say it is not. I hope, my lord, that you live to see the day of a free South Africa. I would like the Lord to give you many years so that one day you can see me walking on the streets of a free South Africa.