WCLS Newsletter Summer 2014

SUMMER 2014 WADHAM COLLEGE LAW SOCIETY ! PRESIDENT: THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD DYSON CHAIRMAN: MR TIM PARKES SECRETARY & TREASURER: MR BEN DULIEU NEWSLETTER EDITOR: MS JOANNA OTTERBURN MEMBERS’ NEWS ROUND UP OF THE INTRODUCING FROM AROUND THE EVENTS OF THE PAST WADHAM'S NEW LAW WORLD TWELVE MONTHS FELLOW WADHAM COLLEGE LAW SOCIETY NEWSLETTER Making History: Family Justice On 22 April 2014, the Single Family Court was launched in England and Wales, shepherded in by none other than Wadham alumni, Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division. “How one goes about the Sir James made some remarks in the process of having a more President’s Court to mark the occasion: informative court list while maintaining the proper privacy “We stand on the cusp of history. 22 of the children and the other April 2014 saw the formal parties is a technical matter. implementation of the largest reform of It’s a difﬁcult matter. It’s an the family justice system any of us have important matter but one we seen or will see in our professional lifetimes. On 22 April 2014 almost all have got to overcome.” the relevant provisions of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 and the Children and - Sir James Munby Families Act 2014 came into force. On 22 April 2014 the Family Court came into existence and the Family Proceedings Court passed into history. On 22 April 2014 we saw the implementation of the final version of the revised Public Law Outline in public law children cases and the implementation in private law children cases of the Child Arrangements Programme. Taken as a whole, these reforms amount to a revolution. Central to this revolution has been – has had to be – a fundamental change in the cultures of the family courts. This is truly a cultural revolution. …” Read the full remarks at: http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/media/speeches/2014/the-family-justice-reforms. Sir James also gave a press conference which can be read in full on the judicial website: http://bit.ly/1mIhT4v. Sir Frank Berman QC receives the Grand Croix de l'Ordre Royal du Cambodge ! Sir Frank Berman QC was one of the lead counsel for Cambodia in the case against Thailand at the International Court of Justice over the Temple of Préah Vihear, where the Court has pronounced a unanimous Judgment in Cambodia’s favour. This is a ground-breaking case, in which the Court for the first time in its history has given a formal detailed decision as to how a prior Judgment should be interpreted, in this instance one dating back to 1962, in which the Court had decided that the Temple belonged to Cambodia.! The 900-year-old temple is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. It sits on a 1,700-ft escarpment in the Dangrek Mountains, close to the border between Cambodia and Thailand. The border was settled by a Franco-Siamese Treaty of 1904, and marked on a series of maps drawn up between then and 1907, but there has been a long-standing rift between the two countries over where it runs in the Temple area, which Thailand had occupied before Cambodia gained its independence in 1953. The 1962 Judgment declared the Temple to be situated in Cambodian sovereign territory, and ordered Thailand to withdraw from its vicinity, but did not define the area concerned. ! When serious hostilities erupted in the wake of UNESCO’s decision to list the Temple in 2008, claiming lives and damaging the Temple itself, and leading to the displacement of thousands of people, Cambodia returned to the International Court asking it to exercise a special jurisdiction under its Statute to interpret the 1962 Judgment. The Court has now decided that under the 1962 Judgment Cambodia had sovereignty over the whole promontory on which the Temple stands including the valley to its west, and terminating to the north at the 1907 map line. !1 SUMMER 2014 WADHAM COLLEGE LAW SOCIETY Interview with the Master of the Rolls ! His record in the Court of Appeal, ‘Now I am in a position, for the For a provincial lad from an entirely non-legal background, with no to which he was appointed in 2001, ﬁrst time in my life, to choose contacts, who drifted into the law, found chambers by accident and is notable for the sheer variety and what cases I want to do. I had no plans or specific ambitions to rise in his profession, John scope of cases in which he was have never had that luxury Dyson has done pretty well. His rise and rise, to the Supreme Court involved, especially coming after before. Everybody likes to sit and thence to Master of the Rolls, was achieved quietly, his stint in the narrow confines of with the Master of the Rolls, unaccompanied by the animated speculation that usually accompanies construction law. the top jobs. And, it seems, without making enemies or attracting the because on the whole he gets usual grumbles that the office should have gone to someone else. ‘It was a great place, the Court good cases.’ of Appeal. I enjoyed it very, very Lord Dyson’s English father and Bulgarian mother owned a chic much. I’ve been very fortunate.’ dress shop in Leeds. Though there was no family or any other link with the law, his father, for some reason he’s never quite understood, In 2010 Dyson was the first always wanted him to be a barrister. After a classics degree at judge to be appointed directly to the Supreme Court without first Wadham College, Oxford, he flirted with the possibility of entering having been a peer; thus, he could be referred to only as Sir John academia, then considered the civil service, before plumping for the Dyson SCJ. A subsequent Royal Warrant enabled him and subsequent Bar. appointees to bear the title ‘Lord’ or ‘Lady’. ‘Looking back on it, it was all delightfully He did not behave with the timidity often shown haphazard. I really didn’t have any burning by the newest recruits to the highest court. Relishing ambition. And so in the end I rationalised the the ambiance of intellectual collegiality, his decision I made, on the basis that the Bar seemed to contributions, according to colleagues, were, from have that very interesting mix of quite an the start, learned and quietly forceful. A short intellectually challenging job as well as being very concurring judgment in one of his first cases, practical.’ involving applications for asylum from homosexual men fearing persecution in their own countries, He then drifted into what was to become his demonstrated the combination of clarity of thought, speciality at Keating Chambers: construction law, realism and - importantly – compassion, which were arguably the least sexy and one of the most obscure apparent in many of his judgments to come. legal subjects. In spite of his somewhat laissez faire attitude he found himself, to his slight surprise, He stayed at the Supreme Court for less than two liking his job, being extremely good at it, and much and a half years before being offered his present job. in demand. His practice blossomed, he took Silk, and a few years afterwards was the subject of an unusual ‘Now I am in a position, for the first time in my ploy, better known in the world of football. life, to choose what cases I want to do. I have never had that luxury before. Everybody likes to sit with He was persuaded – some would say poached – to the Master of the Rolls, because on the whole he gets become head of what was is now 39 Essex Street. At good cases.’ the time it was unusual enough to move chambers – to do so and leap into the top spot of a substantial set from his first But he emphasises that he doesn’t have a hidden agenda. day was considered unprecedented. ‘I would be surprised and disappointed if people looking at my It was there that he had his first mild taste of media attention, judgments were able to say that I had one.’ acting for Dave Clark, the Sixties’ pop star. Thirty years later Clark It is inevitable, though, that judgments delivered by the Master of devised a musical based on his group’s songs. It did not do as well as the Rolls attract more attention and debate than decisions taken by he’d hoped, for which he blamed London’s Dominion Theatre’s box other judges. Lord Dyson does not court controversy, but nevertheless office. With Dyson QC acting for him, Clark sued the Dominion and expresses his opinions vigorously, whether or not they might provoke was awarded £600,000. Dyson remembers the trial for a particular a reaction from an angry government or hostile media. He tasted both reason. when, in March, he delivered the Court of Appeal’s judgment ‘Our case was that the box office had been negligent and not sold preventing the deportation of the alleged terrorist Abu Qatada. the tickets properly. The defence was that the show fizzled out Earlier this year the Court of Appeal ruled that the Home Office because it was no good. They called the Daily Telegraph theatre critic scheme to overhaul the system of criminal records was unlawful. The as their expert. I can still remember to this day that when I read his requirement on all job applicants to disclose all offences, however report there was something about it, I just had a feeling, and so my minor or ancient, was a breach of their right to a private and family first question to him was ‘Have you seen the show?’, and, life.

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