News in brief: week beginning 27 October 2014

COPYRIGHT

Orphan works: Millions of photos, diaries, letters and recordings whose copyright owners cannot be traced may now be made accessible under a new scheme. The government estimates 91 million so-called "orphan works" exist. Museums, publishers and film-makers will be able to use the works providing they have undertaken a "diligent" search for the rights holders and pay a fee. Launching the scheme, the intellectual property minister, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, said it would enable "access to a wider range of our culturally important works".

JUDICIARY

Alleged misconduct: All complaints made against HHJ Peter Thornton QC have been dismissed by the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor, who have agreed there is no evidence to support the allegations of misconduct or to undermine his position as a judicial office holder. The investigation by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office followed claims in the Mail on Sunday that Judge Thornton was 'an apologist' for paedophiles because of an article he wrote in 1982 in the magazine of the National Council for Civil Liberties.

INTERNATIONAL

Gay rights: Singapore's Court of Appeal has rejected a challenge to the country's law criminalising gay sex. Section 337A of the penal code criminalises "any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person." The law, which has a prison sentence of up to two years, is still enforced in the country. The last conviction was in 2010.

HUMAN RIGHTS
Repeated violations: Naked rambler Stephen Gough has lost his case at the European Court of Human Rights after claiming he suffered repression over his nudity and complained about his repeated convictions and imprisonments. Since 2003 Gough has been arrested on numerous occasions across the UK for being naked in public and has been convicted several times for breach of the peace. Between May 2006 and October 2012 Gough spent just seven days free from prison. The court said: "The applicant's imprisonment is the consequence of his repeated violation of the criminal law in full knowledge of the consequences, through conduct which he knew full well not only goes against the standards of accepted public behaviour in any modern democratic society but also is liable to be alarming and morally and otherwise offensive to other, un-warned members of the public going about their ordinary business."

COURT

Costs appeal: Former cabinet minister Chris Huhne has lost his challenge against a costs order for £77,750 arising from his prosecution for passing speeding points to his ex-wife. Three judges at the Court of Appeal rejected his case. Lord Justice Davis, sitting with Mr Justice King and Judge Michael Stokes, said that Mr Justice Sweeney, who made the original costs order at Southwark Court, had "reached a conclusion as to what was just and reasonable which was open to him".

PUBLIC LAW
Badger cull: The Court of Appeal has ruled against the Badger Trust's claim that the lack of an independent panel to monitor the government's latest round of culls was unlawful. The trust claimed the environment secretary, Liz Truss, had given assurances that a second round of culls would take place with independent monitors. However, all three judges dismissed the appeal, with Lord Justice Bean writing in his judgment that the trust had not made "any clear, unambiguous and unqualified representation" on the independent expert panel continuing beyond its first year. Future culls will now be able to go ahead without such monitoring.

SOLICITORS

Misleading explanations: Zia Latif, a solicitor formerly of AKZ Solicitors, has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) following a case brought by the SRA. According to the SRA, Latif admitted failing to maintain properly written up books of accounts, causing or permitting monies to be withdrawn from client bank accounts, giving false and misleading explanations to the SRA, practising as a solicitor without indemnity insurance cover and failing to deliver an accountant's report. He was ordered to pay £22,500 costs.

REGULATORS

Diversity table: Legal regulators must consider introducing quotas and targets to promote diversity in the profession, says one of the founders of the Black Solicitors Network (BSN). Cordella Bart-Stewart, a fee-paid immigration judge and sole principal of Stewart & Co, made the comments after the BSN's latest Diversity League Table report was published. Forty-one firms responded to the survey, which showed women make up 25.4 per cent of partners. Some 5.7 per cent of partners are from an ethnic minority background, compared with 8.1 per cent across the sector. The proportion of black partners continues to remain low at just 0.5 per cent of all partners. SJ