Category: Forthcoming events

’15 April 1989: an inescapable crush on the terraces at Hillsborough Stadium at an FA Cup Semi-Final led to the deaths of 96 men, women and children. Hundreds of Liverpool fans were injured, thousands traumatised. Throughout the investigations and inquiries, those who died and survived were vilified amid police allegations of drunkenness, violence, criminal and abusive behaviour. The families’ unrelenting campaign for truth recovery led to disclosure of all existing documents to an Independent Panel. Its definitive report revealed institutional mendacity, corrupted evidence and partial investigation. This brought an unreserved Government apology, an ongoing criminal investigation into all agencies involved and an unprecedented IPCC investigation into 2,000 police officers. It also led to new inquests, commencing March 2014 through to 2016. Author of the highly acclaimed Hillsborough: The Truth, Phil Scraton, Professor of Criminology, Queen’s University, headed the Panel’s research and was primary author of its report. He has also been advisor to the families’ legal teams throughout the inquests. In this talk he reflects on the long-term campaign for truth, details the Panel’s extensive findings and analyses the new inquests and their outcome. Finally, he examines the impact of his critical research and truth recovery for challenging institutional injustice and holding State institutions to account.’

Date: 17th March 2016, 6.00-7.30pm

Location: UCL Anatomy B15

Charge: Free, booking required

More information can be found here.

‘Ruth Herz will talk to Hilary Heilbron about her mother, Dame Rose Heilbron, a world famous icon of the 1950s and 1960s. Hilary’s biography charts her mother’s successful legal career, and how as a working wife and mother, she navigated her way to an isolated position of female seniority in a stoically masculine field. Rose Heilbron was the first woman Judge in England in 1956, the first woman judge to sit at the Old Bailey, and the second woman to be appointed a High Court judge. ‘

Date: 19th February 2016, 6.30-8.00pm

Location: Clore Management Centre, Room CLO 203

Charge: Free, booking required

More information can be found here.

‘Specialist barristers from 11KBW – well-established as the leading information law chambers – will provide updates on the law and practicalities of this increasingly important area. Topics will include:

The future of data protection:

an overview of the imminent General Data Protection Regulation and its impact
Data protection: subject access requests, compensation claims and international transfers
Freedom of information: updates on leading new cases and a look to the future
Environmental information: analysis and practical implications of important case law developments
Media and data privacy: privacy-related damages, the right to be forgotten and the increasing interrelationship between data protection and privacy
Catastrophic data losses: how to reduce risks and manage consequences
Surveillance and the state: an update on the evolving relationship between state objectives and individual privacy.’

Date: 2nc March 2016, 9.00am-4.00pm

Location: The Royal College of Surgeons 35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE

Charge: See website for details

More information can be found here.

‘The DLA AGM and annual social event will take place on Wednesday 3 February 2016 beginning at 6.00pm. We are delighted that Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, has agreed to be our guest speaker.

Note: Non-members are welcome to attend the AGM but only DLA members will be eligible to vote at the meeting. Please let us know at info@discriminationlaw.org.uk if you plan to attend.’

Date: Wednesday 3rd February 2016, 6.00pm

Location: 7 Bedford Row Chambers, London WC1R 4BS

Charge: nFree

More information can be found here.

‘With the in/out Europe vote to come (or having gone) what will the result mean for Human Rights? How is or has the debate been framed?

The lecture will present a review of what has happened in the courts since 2015, with an opportunity for debate.’

Date: 6th April 2016, 6.00pm

Location: Barnard’s Inn Hall

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘Reputations tumble; men once popular and famous but too powerful are condemned and imprisoned. Others fear their reputations will not long survive their deaths. Others will ‘get away with it’ as presumably they always have. How will all this be viewed in decades to come? Witch-hunt or confirmation that Mary Whitehouse was right all the time and the sexual revolution is to blame? If so, what should society have done that it didn’t? What should it do now apart from lock up aged offenders? And what about juries? Will they, not judges, ultimately determine how law can be fair on sexual behaviour – assuming juries can ever discuss these things candidly.’

Date: 2nd March 2016, 6.00pm

Location: Barnard’s Inn Hall

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) should properly have been called the Data Privacy Act: it is about privacy of personal data and not merely its security. Recent cases – if successful for the claimants – will change the litigation landscape for everyone.’

Date: 27th January 2016, 6.00pm

Location: Museum of London

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘The legislation of assisted suicide in the UK is as controversial as the Death with Dignity Act (DWDA) that led it its decriminalisation in Oregon in 1994. The United States Supreme Court subsequently rejected an attempt to have the law declared unconstitutional but steps seem to be needed to address the ethical concerns raised by members of the academic, political, and religious communities, including safeguards to protect vulnerable people. What can be learned in the UK from the USA experience?’

Date: 25th January 2016, 1.00pm

Location: Museum of London

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘Speakers
Christopher Bennett, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy (University of Sheffield)
Marija Krlic, Research Associate (University of Sheffield) and ex-prison governor
Kimberley Brownlee, Associate Professor in Legal and Moral Philosophy (University of Warwick)
Andrew Neilson, Director of Campaigns (Howard League for Penal Reform)

Chair
Peter Dennis, Fellow, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method (LSE) and Forum for European Philosophy Fellow

In this time of austerity, many of those who want a small state are also committed to a highly expensive criminal justice apparatus that has little demonstrable deterrent effect. But are there other, more direct arguments against the use of imprisonment as a dominant form of punishment? If so, what are they? Why do they so often fall on deaf ears? And does the current economic climate make it more likely that those in power will listen?’

Date: 15th March 2016, 6.30-8.00pm

Location: London School of Economics, Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘This lecture will be given by Professor Christopher Newdick, University of Reading and will be followed by a drinks reception. The lecture is accredited for 1 CPD hour and is open to members of all four Inns. The lecture is also accredited as a qualifying session for Inner Temple students.’

Date: 15 February 2016

Location: Inner Temple, London, EC4Y 7HL

Charge: See website for details

More information can be found here.

‘This lecture will be given by Dr James Goudkamp and Professor Donal Nolan, University of Oxford and will be followed by a drinks reception. The lecture is accredited for 1 CPD hour and is open to members of all four Inns. The lecture is also accredited as a qualifying session for Inner Temple students.’

Date: 18 January 2016

Location: Inner Temple, London, EC4Y 7HL

Charge: See website for details

More information can be found here.

‘Hart Publishing is pleased to invite you to the ninth annual Hart Judicial Review Conference. The conference promises to be of extremely high quality, with an excellent chair and panel of speakers dedicated to analysing developments in Judicial Review in 2015.’

Date: 11th December 2015, 8.45am-5.00pm

Location: The Cavendish Conference Centre, 22 Duchess Mews, London, W1G 9DT

Charge: DELEGATE FEE – £380 + £76 VAT*= £456, EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT – 15% off bookings made by 23rd October
£323 + £65 VAT*= £388

More information can be found here.

‘Many have argued that when the West talks about human rights then it is their concept of human rights they want to make universal. In addition, when the Prime Minister talks about human rights he wants a British Human Rights Bill, thus suggesting that there is a British dimension to human rights. So how universal is it?’

Date: 28th September 2015, 7.00-9.00pm

Location: Conway Hall

Charge: Free, registration required

More information can be found here.

‘On 2 November our Director General Dr Vanessa Davies is speaking at a Law Society event titled ‘Is regulation killing pro bono?’

The event marks the official opening of National Pro Bono Week 2015 with a panel discussion about regulation and pro bono, chaired by the Attorney General’s pro bono envoy, Mike Napier CBE, QC.

Speakers

Attorney General (invited – TBC)
Dr Vanessa Davies, Director General, Bar Standards Board
Paul Philip, Chief Executive, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Sir Michael Pitt, Chair, Legal Services Board’

Date: 2nd November 2015, 8.30am-11.00am

Location: The Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘Book soon to secure a place at this year’s DLA conference.
2015 is the 50th anniversary of the first Race Relations Act, the 40th anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act and the 20th anniversary of the first Disability Discrimination Act as well as the 20th anniversary of the Discrimination Law Association. We are using this year’s conference to remind ourselves of past struggles and celebrate the rights we have won but also to consider the task ahead to retain, develop and expand those rights.
The keynote speaker, Judge Brian Doyle, President of the Employment Tribunals of England and Wales, will address issues of employment discrimination and what the future may hold for users and equality practitioners of the Tribunals. Other speakers include Geoffrey Bindman QC, Jenny Earle, Professor Anna Lawson and Karon Monaghan QC.’

Date: 26th October 2015
Location: Baker & McKenzie, 100 New Bridge Street, London EC4V 6JA
Charge: See website for details

‘They deserve to be put away’; ‘Appeal the sentence – too short’; ‘They should lock him up and throw away the key’. How civilised has it ever been to imprison other humans – or to want to do it? How many prisoners had their fates determined by circumstance, how many by truly free will? How often has increasing in prison building been used to increase a politician’s vote? How impossible would it be for most politicians to argue for fewer prisons because they do not work, when as a society we have to assume they do?

Date: 2nd December 2015, 6.00pm

Location: Barnard’s Inn Hall

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘A growing number of countries have so-called memory laws, ranging from the criminalisation of Holocaust denial, to prescriptions for the teaching of certain subjects, memorial days and public monuments. Which, if any, of these are justified? Which are more effective in combating evils they are supposed to combat, based on misinterpretations of the past?’

Date: 28th October 2015, 6.00pm

Location: Museum of London

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘The 2015 annual lecture will be given by Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions.’

Date: 20th October 2015, 6.30pm

Location: Shearman & Sterling LLP, 9 Appold St – London

Charge: Free, donations welcome

More information can be found here.

‘One of the highlights of the human rights lawyer’s CPD calendar, the JUSTICE Annual Human Rights Conference offers a key opportunity to update your legal knowledge and gain valuable insight into the human rights issues of the year.

The Rt. Hon. Sir Brian Leveson and Natalie Lieven QC will be joining us as our keynote speakers and the programme for this year’s event will focus on the challenges facing practitioners and the wider public policy debate on human rights law in the UK.’

Date: 12th October 2015

Location: Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Tudor Street, London

Charge: See website for details

More information can be found here.

‘Speaker: Charles Mynors, Barrister (Francis Taylor Building)

There are now around 60 statutes in force dealing with town planning and related matters. It might seem to be obviously attractive to undertake a massive consolidation exercise. But how far should it go? What should be included? Should the new statutes codify principles developed by the courts clarifying the meaning of the statutory text? And what about actual changes? How much should be delegated to secondary legislation? What about definitions? Could there be a new on-line version? And why is the Government so reluctant to undertake consolidation? What are the lessons to be learnt from the tax law rewrite programme? ‘

Date: 8th June 2015, 6.00-7.00pm

Location: Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Charles Clore House, 17 Russell Square
London WC1B 5DR

Charge: Free, registration required

More information can be found here.