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On April 11, 2016 April 11, 2016 By Henry BrookeIn ACCESS TO JUSTICE
The Bar Council gave evidence to the Commission on 9th February 2016. It was represented by the Chairman of the Bar, Chantal-Aimée Doerries [C-AD], accompanied by:
Martin Westgate QC [MW], Chair of the Bar Council's Civil Public Panel which sits within its Remuneration Committee.
Mark Hatcher [MH], Special Advisor to the Chairman of the Bar Council
Philip Robertson, Head of Policy at the Bar Council.
Warning: Because unusually I have access to a full transcript, this is a long blog. With two exceptions, I have summarised the questions but set out the answers in full (subject to very minor editing)
In her introductory statement, C-AD said:
"The Bar Council welcomes the Labour Party's interest in, and commitment to, reviewing legal aid and, more widely, access to justice.
Access to justice, and the important role which the justice system plays in our democracy, is an issue which we believe has been somewhat neglected by Parliament over the years. We were interested in Lord Bach's frank comments, at the Legal Aid Summit at Westminster in November 2015, that he was disappointed in what the Labour Party had to offer in the general election campaign on legal aid. So we welcome this commission and the review of legal aid as a new chapter which provides an important opportunity for dialogue between policy makers and their key stakeholders, of which the Bar of England and Wales is one.
The Bar Council looks forward to contributing to today's proceedings. We realise that we may not be able to answer all your questions today, but we are committed to contributing to your review going forward.
We are committed to sharing our knowledge and expertise, and to working with all political parties, including the Labour Party, towards raising the profile of justice issues, including increasing the value placed on the justice system, and in the interests of widening access to justice.
We do so in the public interest.
We particularly value the opportunity presented by this commission to gather evidence and promote dialogue amongst those engaged in the justice system. Full and proper consultation, and evidence-based policy making, should be at the heart of any proposals.
Whilst we recognise the realities, and challenges, that austerity brings, there are important lessons that can be learned from recent cuts and reforms to our system of justice. The National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and Justice Select Committee have each set out in some detail these lessons in painful clarity, based on the evidence they have accumulated.
In this introductory statement I wanted to focus on:
(i) The value of justice and the role of the state;
(ii) Justice and austerity;
(iii) Re-building access to justice.
(i) The value of justice and the role of the state
Justice, by which I mean a functioning, open and transparent justice system, which is accessible to citizens, with proper representation where necessary, underpins our way of life and protects everything we, as citizens, lawyers or politicians, work hard for. It is precious and is something which Government, and society, must be prepared to pay for. It should not be a luxury made available only to those who are able to afford it. We must get away from the idea that justice is a commodity that citizens consume as a matter of choice.
It is because citizens have access to justice that big businesses pay their bills to smaller suppliers, that parents can get the right pay and leave from their employers, and that elderly people get the care to which they are entitled. When people use the courts and other legal avenues to enforce the law, it helps to ensure that we all play by the rules. A vital ingredient to ensuring stability in a democratic society is knowledge on the part of citizens, businesses, and other organisations that access to the courts is available. This is an essential ingredient both in the context of cases between the citizen and the state, as well as between private citizens and businesses. In blunt terms without access to justice being available to all citizens, we will all suffer. Ultimately, a lack of access undermines the democratic process and the glue that binds society together. We also know that a functioning and accessible justice system are important markers of markets into which businesses are keen to invest.
The idea that people who choose to use the courts are being subsidised by the state is, in our view, misguided. It is rarely a choice in the real sense, but rather a need which drives people to court. Secondly, we would suggest that it should be the duty of the state to provide an effective and efficient system of justice accessible to all. Without this there can be no liberty or meaningful democracy, and no respect for our fundamental freedoms or the rule of law. Further, at the extreme, if justice through the courts is not accessible, then we have to ask ourselves how the underlying disputes will be resolved.
One of the narratives which seems to have gained in traction during the more challenging economic times of recent years is that legal aid is a luxury which can no longer be afforded and that significant inroads can be made to it without any real detriment to society as a whole, or to those immediately affected.
We have for some time been lobbying for a proper review by Government of the impact of LASPO three years on. This is absolutely critical, particularly given the lack of any proper evidence-based research before the LASPO cuts were introduced. We know from our Bar pro bono statistics that the unmet demand for legal assistance following the LASPO cuts is very real:
In 2013 there was a 30% increase in family pro bono applicants at the Unit.
I also know from speaking to members practising in family law, that Chambers have seen a huge increase in direct requests for pro bono representation. The Bar has always been committed to pro bono but pro bono cannot, and should not, replace a properly funded legal aid system.
6. Justice should be understood to be a fundamental right to be guaranteed by Government – in the same vein as the provision of health care and education. This is a strong message and one we send to jurisdictions overseas. We should not take for granted the protection of this fundamental right at home.
(ii) Justice and austerity
Financial austerity as applied to justice has put our justice system under unprecedented strain. Access to publicly-funded legal advice and representation has been severely restricted. Repeated cuts to court services, increases in tribunal and court fees, and decades of under-investment have produced a system of justice that we and others believe is no longer able to serve the public as it should. A few stark examples:
Between 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 there were an additional 8,110 cases involving contact with children where neither party was represented. In the same period there was an overall increase of 30% in family court cases where neither party had legal representation.
Government anticipated that there would be a large increase in people taking their cases to mediation. In fact, during the period 2012-2013 to 2013-2014 the number of cases going to mediation plummeted by 56%. This is one of the most striking statistics – the removal of legal aid, and hence affordable access to legal advice, led to fewer people resolving their disputes outside the court.
8. These few examples highlight the very real challenges posed by the removal of legal aid. But it must be remembered that the real cost to society is wider. The inability of families to resolve their disputes with proper representation may well have other repercussions and lead to increased costs elsewhere.
A central concern for us has been the selective representation of cost by those in Government. As recently as 28 January 2016 the Lord Chancellor in a written statement stated, "at the start of this Parliament expenditure on legal aid per capita was more generous than any other EU nation or comparable common law jurisdiction." Every justice system has different cost drivers and looking simply at legal aid in isolation we would suggest is unhelpful. Overall the cost of our system of justice is below the European average, and costs the British tax-payer less than €2 per week – that is the price of one cup of coffee.
LASPO and other reforms reduced the legal aid budget from approximately £2.4 billion to £1.6 billion. That is a saving of £800 million. At about the same time in 2013 it was reported that the over-spend on two aircraft carriers was £800 million. The overall equipment over-spend was estimated at £6.5 billion.
We recognise that we live in challenging times, but, as a society, we must be prepared to pay for justice and the price we pay for justice should reflect the value we place on living in a just and civilised society.
This is not to say that the resources allocated to justice should be limitless. But it does mean that justice should be properly resourced to avoid a denial of justice. Expenditure on the justice system should be a matter of which government and citizens are proud.
(iii) Re-building access to justice
13. A starting point is research and discussion. In particular, we are keen to see research into the consequences of the cuts to date. The Bar Council carried out research one year into the LASPO cuts and we are embarking on research into LASPO three years on, and we are also in the process of funding and commissioning research into to McKenzie friends.
14. But only the Government has the resources and access to data necessary to adequately study the impact of recent cuts and reforms – in other words, to assess the impact on citizens and courts, but also more widely i.e. the impact on society as a whole, including on health and social welfare.
15. We call on parliamentarians of all parties:
To value justice as vital to civil society, not an optional extra, and publicly to reflect this in their statements.
To commit to ensuring there is access to justice for all.
To invest in technology and efficiency savings for the administration of justice.
To commit to thorough consultations and evidence-based policy making – take a holistic view of the potential impact of reforms the justice system, rather than a piecemeal approach."
Questioned by Commissioners
Andrew Keogh:
Could I ask you about two separate topics. You touched upon delivering justice and you touched briefly on technology, but could I just give you a scenario, and see what you might make of it. We have a person at a police station in Westminster who's just been charged with an offence and is video-linked to a district judge sitting somewhere, let's say Newcastle for the sake of argument. Any problems with that do you think? From the suspect's point of view. Or wider in terms of justice. What I'm really getting at is that we talk about, in criminal terms, local justice, local courts, trial by local magistrates, local knowledge (although I'm not sure you can always achieve that). I just wonder whether that's something we should value. If we have technology does it diminish justice or the defendant in any way, and does it make it harder for society to see what's going on? Any obvious impact?
The second question relates to funding. The Bar has not been overly keen on One Case One Fee in the past. Now, more generally with direct public access by barristers, and in particular the ability for barristers to carry out litigation on a case, is there any greater enthusiasm for the barrister becoming the legal aid holder, with a barrister being able to apply for a legal aid certificate as it were, or for representation or call it whatever you like, and take the entire fee for carrying out both the litigation function and an advocacy function which is effectively what some solicitors are able to do by keeping work in house. Is there any general view on that?
I think one of the big concerns I would have on the first question is implicit in the way you put the question, which is about local accountability. It's one thing to have local justice but it has also got to be rooted in the local community, and if it's not, if you've got a video link somewhere and no one can see what's going on, that's a very real injury to the idea of justice being delivered for the community. But there is also always a difficulty, isn't there, in the connection when people are communicating through video link, no matter how good the link is. You see it when you're interviewing witnesses on video link and you see it when a witness's evidence is being received. Something is lost. That said, obviously there may be some cases … a lot of it will depend, I suppose, on the nature of the case. There may be some procedural matters that can efficiently be dealt with in that way. So I wouldn't want to be too Luddite about it.
C-A D
On your second question, there's no great appetite in the profession for One Case One Fee and that may not come as any surprise to you. We believe that the system as it currently works with barristers predominantly doing the advocacy with some solicitor advocates, and with solicitors predominantly doing litigation is one that works well and one that produces efficiencies. We welcome competition, but in terms of One Case One Fee there's no real appetite at the Bar for conducting litigation. We could provide you with the numbers of those who have applied[1]. They are very small and I suspect predominantly in areas other than those which would traditionally have been serviced that way through legal aid. There are clearly issues with that because one of the things that makes the Bar, if I can put it this way, good in what we deliver (which is specialist independent advocacy services) is the structure that we have through Chambers which allows for very low overheads. This allows us to have that specialism at relatively low cost, and if the Bar were to move substantially towards conducting litigation, something for which I have seen no real appetite for in any substantial numbers, we would certainly have to change the way that we work. And I think we would lose something in doing that.
Questioned on when a hearing by video link might be acceptable
I think it is quite difficult to think of a case where it would be appropriate, partly because you can't tell what's going to happen. I can see, for example, that if something like a bail application is not going to be an issue there might be some virtue in certain procedural hearings being dealt with as the case goes through, but I can't off the top of my head think of an example where I would advocate positively a video hearing.
Questioned about the merits of the proposed investment of £700 million on technology for the courts
I suppose if one moves slightly sideways into the civil area it gives rise to all sorts of questions in relation to some of the most vulnerable people and the extent to which they would have access to technology and/or be able to use it and/or the underlying assumption that legal representation is not something which is necessary to assist them in the process. They're certainly matters that I would think are a real concern…
I would caution that any decision or proposal needs to be based on proper evidence and on consultation such as this. One of the concerns we have with the Briggs proposal specifically is the quite fantastic speed with which it's been advanced. Admittedly it is an interim report which is now being consulted upon, but we would caution a slower pace and proper evidence-gathering. We have set up a Committee to look into it and to address some of the questions you have raised. Reading the report initially our concern is very much that which you touched upon, the fact that the report effectively assumes that legal representation is not something which people need. The basis of the online court is that lawyers are not necessary. One could understand that in certain cases individuals may not require lawyers, but to set up a system that effectively operates on the premise that you don't need a lawyer to help you, while at the same time recognising that at the top end of our market our legal system is thought to be one of the best in the world, if not the best in the world: the Lord Chancellor and others have said this. So in essence what you're doing is creating or accepting a two-tier system for citizens right at the outset rather than even trying to create a system that allows for access across the board.
There are other avenues, I mean for example the Report spends very little time dealing with the Small Claims Court. In some areas of work the Small Claims Court is a very efficient way, very effective way of dealing with claims. I think to come back to your question in the round we would want further consideration as to which areas and where the use of I.T. can be effectively used without actually limiting the sort of access to justice that we are concerned will result from that. I have to say my own practice has been an area where I.T. has played a role, but even there it's recognised that there are limits and that I.T. systems cannot answer all of our problems.
Questioned about the best way to avoid problematic issues over the listing of criminal cases
My understanding is that in many of the reforms that are being introduced under better case management – and our Criminal Bar Association has certainly promoted this – the aim is, among other things, to deal with precisely that issue so that there will be greater certainty as to hearing dates. I think you're right to flag that. This certainly remains a problem both for defendants themselves and for the lawyers involved in the system. The sort of uncertainty that exists around hearing dates is a problem and continues to be a problem, but we hope that better case management will begin to address that. We're obviously in quite an early stage at the moment, so that's probably a matter for reporting back to you and seeing to what extent the changes there do have the intended effect.
Questioned about the effect of the cuts on the diversity of entrants to the Bar and the ways they are encouraged to have a legal aid practice
Taking the first point which is to do with diversity. I have no figures or statistics I can give you, but based on fairly constant anecdotal evidence that I have been given, it's fairly clear to me that the cuts to legal aid have had an impact both in terms of intake and in terms of the ability of people to continue to progress once they have qualified. If I can put it like this, I came to the Bar 25 years or so ago. When I came, education was for free, my Bar course was relatively minor in cost, I think it was about £3,000, and the kids that we're now trying to attract come with a huge burden of university debt. They then come to the Bar vocational course that costs about £17,000. Even with the £5 million that the Inns plough into scholarships it's a very serious challenge. So the first thing is to attract them and encourage them to take that risk. It is a risk as we all know. Once you've qualified you still need to get a tenancy, you then need to build a practice, so we are concerned about that.
Secondly, we are concerned about the impact of the cuts on the ability of barristers to continue to practise, and obviously particularly in relation to diversity where we're trying to encourage social mobility and diversity, in particularly in terms of male and female and some of the challenges that come with taking career breaks, so I think there's no doubt that it has had and will have an impact. The greater challenge is what we can do about it. I've mentioned the Inns and the scholarships that we make available. There's been much discussion – although this goes beyond my remit – about making some of the scholarships available for the early stages of practice: in other words, not just for qualification, so that you funnel some of the money towards the lower earning as is now the case through legal aid, to make it viable for youngsters to move in that direction and continue to practise.
What are we doing to encourage those qualified to consider legal aid? Well, I suppose we're promoting practice at the Bar at the heart of the profession. I can say this not as a criminal practitioner nor a legal aid practitioner, although I have to say that 25 years ago there was, remarkably, legal aid in my area of work which is Construction Engineering: it is surprising how times have changed. I can say this – that at the heart of the Bar is the independent criminal practitioner. That is in a way the life blood of my profession. That isn't to say that the commercial Bar and the rest of the civil Bar aren't incredibly important to the maintenance of a healthy justice system, but the independent criminal Bar is effectively what stands between the citizen and the state in very real terms. From my point of view and from the Bar Council's point of view we actively encourage young aspiring barristers to look for practice in that field, but it's challenging, and the sort of stories I've heard are of practitioners going on secondments for six months in order to fund the six months of their practice that is legal aided. So there are issues where people really are struggling to survive on the basis of current funding.
Questioned about the Bar's approach to the need to provide minimum salaries for those who are going to do predominantly legal aid pupillages
There's obviously a compulsory obligation to pay pupillage which wasn't historically the case… There is a basic minimum. Beyond that I think it's challenging. What I was talking about is really about petitioning the Inns. The chambers that do that type of work are probably not necessarily going to be best placed for that type of support.
One of the areas we've been looking at is the Inns' funding: not taking it away from those who need it to qualify, but perhaps moving or redistributing some of it towards those early stages which I understand is how some of the scholarship money used to be spent. I know this is something which Lord Judge talked about when he was Treasurer of Middle Temple. You can then enable someone not just to qualify: you actually set them up for the first few years, and I can see a lot of purpose in that.
Questioned about the Bar's views on the availability of legal aid for inquests
I think the honest answer to your point is that we are operating in a contested space for spend on legal aid. To be candid, the Bar Council's priority has been to address the mainstream issues arising out of LASPO in the criminal legal aid environment. That has been very much the focus of our attention, but behind your question is the complete imbalance in power between the respective sides: the Ministry of Defence can hire the best and the brightest at the Bar to advocate their cause, and that is not an option that is available to many families who find themselves in this sort of situation. So I think that if it's put to us that we should consider this again in the context of the priorities that we've got, it will be considered very carefully by the Bar Council in its Remuneration Committee in the first instance.
If I can add to that, I was just going to say that I am also aware that this is an area where pro bono lawyers appear. I'm certainly aware of colleagues, both barristers and solicitors, who act pro bono. In fact, one was telling me recently that a solicitor and a barrister acted for over three weeks on an inquest in a Ministry of Defence case. That's a huge commitment to expect people to make…
There is another aspect of that, of course. There is also the availability of costs recovery in the event of a civil claim that follows on from an inquest or from other cases. It would be good if that were strengthened. At the moment it's very much touch and go if you have a subsequent claim how much of the inquest costs you can then recover against the people who are responsible for the death. It is always two sides of that coin with legally aided work: many practitioners can only carry on in business because of the cases where they recover in the event of success. That needs to be thought through more rigorously as well, not just in inquest cases but more generally.
Questioned on whether the Bar Council has any concrete suggestions on ways to make the criminal justice system and/or the civil justice system more efficient, and on whether senior members of the Bar could do more to uphold the values mentioned in the Bar Council's opening statement
I would prefer to come back to you on the question about concrete recommendations in order to do justice to it.
Looking at the second question in terms of the legal profession sharing the pain, I think there's a real perception issue here. It's something that's really struck me in the last year or two coming into this job which is – and obviously I'm primarily interested in the Bar, but I would say the same about solicitors – quite how much the professions actually do on a pro bono basis. You're right to draw attention obviously to those who do legal aid and the low levels of pay, and to the areas from which legal aid has been withdrawn – for example family cases – I have countless stories literally of young family barristers doing work pro bono, and the statistics I gave in opening really demonstrate that, but the story doesn't stop there and what's really struck me is quite how far that commitment goes. I would suggest that the Lord Chancellor's comments on this particular topic were perhaps made without the sort of evidence gathering that I was talking about beforehand.
One of the things I've done this year is to set up a Pro Bono Board at the Bar Council with the specific aim of collating information about the extent of our commitment, because I realise we have the Bar Pro Bono Unit and the solicitors have something similar, and we have the Free Representation Unit, but the schemes go way beyond that. If I were to say to you that not a week passes in which someone doesn't tell me about a scheme that has been set up somewhere in the country, I'm really not exaggerating. Much of that growth is obviously driven by the severe cuts.
I take the point and I think it is a very valid one that there is a real issue with how much of that we can do before we start to mask the real challenge here or the consequences. Having said that, I think the profession has always had a commitment to pro bono and that is to be commended. What I would like to do is to be able to come back to you in the future – and that's what this Board is doing- and tell you how much we actually do, how much the commercial Bar contributes, what a set of construction law chambers is doing, so as to give you a real sense. In the inquest I was telling you about, just by way of example, the barrister who did that was a QC in a construction and professional negligence chambers and the solicitor who was doing it comes from one of the top City law firms. Not their daily work but they chose to give up 3 weeks to do that type of work. So the first thing is collating the information, and the second thing – and you'll forgive me if I wear my so-called trade union hat – is that I want to talk about it more because I think the profession understandably is really bad about talking about what we do. There are all sorts of very good reasons for that, but we need to get an understanding into society more broadly as to what our commitment is to justice and how it goes beyond money. One of the things that troubles me is that we are seen increasingly not as lawyers who operate within the justice system performing something important for society but actually as businesses, not even as professionals. So that shift I think is a fundamental one because if we don't achieve that, society, I think, will have little sympathy and understanding for the importance of actually what we're talking about here.
I was going to answer the first question about concrete proposals until the rider "that would make things more efficient" was added, because you can't look at legal aid and you can't look at access to justice and costs without looking at costs liability and costs recovery. So the single biggest suggestion I would have, and it steps outside legal aid, would be to revisit Sir Rupert Jackson's proposals about one-way cost shifting, so that people are less terrified about incurring the other side's liabilities in the costs jurisdiction. That to my mind was a great missed chance. I'm not surprised the chance was missed but the suggestions that he made were ones that ought to have been taken further forward, particularly in the area around public law for example. That would be my main concrete proposal. I'm afraid I can't make any promises about its efficiency savings.
Questioned about the best way to reframe the public debate so that those who are not rich or very poor may be able to obtain access to justice
I think the first way – and perhaps it's the easiest one to identify and maybe it's actually the hardest one to fulfil – is education. I fundamentally believe that we have failed to educate our society and by that I mean us as lawyers, if you excuse me those of you who are politicians, to educate our society as to why a justice system matters. In other words, there is an understanding about health and education but there should also be an understanding about the justice system. It's not just understanding that any of us may need representation and may be in the courts one day, but it's also about understanding why having an effective justice system matters for those who aren't actually in it, and who maybe will have the good fortune to be born and pass away without ever having darkened the door of a court…
It should be done through schools and universities. fundamentally educating people about what justice is, why it matters, how our system functions, taking them into court. I was involved in a Bar placement programme which we run, which is primarily for social mobility purposes so as to encourage a wider access to the profession. I was speaking to kids who are 16/17 from schools who perhaps wouldn't traditionally have had that opportunity. We give them 3 days' training in advocacy, they sit in chambers, they go into courts, and the feedback you get from those children is fantastic, not just in terms of opening their eyes but actually in beginning to get them to understand what the justice system is and why it matters…
The Bar Council has limited means, but we're always willing to do more on that front and that is something we fundamentally believe in, but I think actually that's a matter for the state, for Government.
Questioned about the possibility of making education about the justice system a compulsory school course for 15-16 year olds
You may be thinking of the public legal education responsibility that the Legal Services Act refers to amongst the objectives that the approved regulators (of whom the Bar Council is one) might be addressing more than they are at the moment. That's one approach. We do make a significant contribution each year to the work of the Citizenship Foundation in the national mock trial initiative that we run. This is a fantastic way of communicating the experience of being before a court and advocating a cause and contemplating the issues at stake.
Going back to the challenging question about PR, I think too often the case for valuing justice is put by members of the legal profession whose comments are very often discounted because "they would say that wouldn't they?" The challenge, I think, for the representative bodies in our profession is to broaden the debate out and to encourage those who are the recipients of the services that we provide to speak of their experience and the benefit they have had.
It's not easy, but the best advocate in a way in this case would be the third party advocate who is endorsing, hopefully, the quality of service that they've received from their advocate at their time of need. That is something that I think we could all do more to address as national bodies in terms of understanding the consumer experience and getting that represented, because there are some very powerful stories we know about where we've made a real difference. We hear that from our pro bono colleagues:
"But for the intervention of the law at this particular stage, my life would have been in complete pieces"
That kind of narrative. Speaking personally, I'm sure we could do much more of this.
One of the things we've been trying to do over the last year is to meet some of those people who have made use of the Pro Bono Unit. What has really struck me is (1) the very clear understanding as to the benefit that they have derived from representation and (2) (and this was an interesting one, from the cases that went to trial and costs budgets were nonetheless prepared), what was interesting was often the feedback I was given was that they were surprised how reasonable the fee was of the barrister who was representing them on a pro bono basis. I thought that was quite surprising because I think one of the challenges we have is that there are definitely issues in terms of affordability of justice, but there is an also an issue of perception. I think more people could afford legal representation through solicitors and barristers than they do because they don't think they could afford it. So it's a sort of double PR issue: both the importance of justice but also realising – and I think particularly following the LASPO cuts that's certainly something that's come back to me quite often – that even people who are still in scope assume they're not because there was quite a lot of publicity surrounding the LASPO cuts. So I think it's education as to what is available as much as anything.
Questioned as to whether there are areas of work in which the specialist advocacy skills of the Bar are not needed
My instinctive reaction to that, and I'd want to think about it, is that they are needed across the board, because I think one of the challenges is to generalise. Whether a case before a tribunal or before a court is suitable would depend on the facts and the legal argument in the particular case. I think it's quite dangerous to say "well over here you don't really need the full package and over here you do." We've seen that to some extent in other debates surrounding legal funding and the funding of the courts, so I think if you recognise the value of proper representation, then it should be available across the board.
In one sense you're drawing the wrong lesson aren't you? If you say, "well, for tribunal cases often you don't need representation therefore you may not need it elsewhere", it goes the other way, I think. You may need to re-think which are the areas of tribunal cases where representation should be more prevalent. I can't put my finger on it at the moment, but certainly there was some research – it's quite old now – about relative success rates in employment tribunals whether you were represented or were not represented, and the difference in outcome was enormous. If you look at the work of the Social Security Chamber and the complexity of benefits law, then at least when you get to the Upper Tribunal when you're arguing about pure points of law there should be representation there, for example. So even if it doesn't go the whole way, I think you need to look more carefully at which tribunal areas need to have representation. And advice [by way of legal help] prior to representation. That is the great gap now.
Questioned whether lawyers' clients would be better advocates for justice if lawyers treated them as participants in the process, rather than as subjects of the process
I suppose I'm bound to say there's always room for improvement [in the way lawyers act towards their clients]. I'd be foolish if I didn't say that. I don't personally share the experience that you're describing but it's certainly something I can go back and speak to my members about. Generally, I think that the profession is a very modern profession. It's a profession that has moved with the times, and certainly my experience isn't – and not just my personal experience but I've been visiting Crown Courts and other civil courts and certainly my experience is not of the client, if I can put it that way, being treated as anything than really as the focal point because at the end of the day that's what we're there for.
But if you're suggesting there are problems it is always something we could look at by way of education. My feeling is that the profession has moved in that regard quite substantially, and actually my experience is that generally speaking if you speak to people who have been through the process, particularly the trial process, they advocate the benefit of what they've seen certainly in the civil area. One of the interesting things – and it's anecdotal but I've certainly seen it several times – is that clients who don't see the full process (and many choose not to) are more likely to complain even though they've had a good settlement than clients who have actually seen justice in action and had their day in court. In some ways I find that quite comforting because I think that when people get as far as the door of the court the experience is not always but is often a positive one within the remit of the fact that they are in court in the first place.
In picking up the point that we need to reach out to those people and to try and encourage them to tell their story, if I could just anecdotally come back to the Bar placement schemes we are running, one of the things that struck me – and it isn't a direct answer to your question – was that one of the students who won the essay (we were requiring them to write an essay about things they had learned) told me, or her essay told us, how what she had learned in those three days was not just about the justice system, but that she had also learned another lesson: that you could disagree with another person without shouting at them. It really struck me because she had not only learned what our system is about and that you can take your dispute to court and have it adjudicated upon, but she had also learned another lesson. That sort of comes full circle in terms of the importance of the PR exercise that we have and how effectively it could go beyond simply explaining our justice system.
Questioned about the Bar Council's present stance on the desirability of creating a Contingency Legal Aid Fund (CLAF)
As you rightly say it's been a topic which we've supported for many years going back, I think, way back when Heather Hallett was Chairman of the Bar. Guy Mansfield has definitely been a mover in that. We welcomed the speech and we're sitting down with the Law Society and CILEx and putting together a working group. We are going to look into it. The fundamental question is: is it financially viable? will it work? The concept is one we certainly commend, but the real question – and it is that which has stopped us in the past – is: will the market sustain a CLAF? We're hoping to work together with some of the funders in the market as well to get some hands on experience if I can put it that way, beyond lawyers…
I think the challenge, I'm bound to say, is the seed corn funding and then whether it will continue – whether it would be viable financially after that. Those are the two main areas.
It has worked in some jurisdictions so we've always been a supporter of it. I'm only being cautious because there have been issues with it in the past, but in principle we're enthusiastic if we can make it work.
Just to add a footnote if I may on the CLAF point. At the Bar Council we did invest a significant amount of resource, both time and money and interest in the concept. We engaged specialist economic consultants to look at the financial liability of a CLAF scheme and the preliminary results were encouraging. We pressed the pause button in 2012 when the LASPO Bill was going through Parliament for tactical reasons. We didn't want to let the Government off the hook and to look towards a CLAF as the solution to all our problems, but the time is right for all sorts of reasons – and Rupert Jackson articulates them very well in his speech the other week. As Chantelle has indicated it is an idea whose time has come round again. So we are actively engaged with the Law Society and CILEx and we hope to produce some results by the end of the year.
Bill Waddington:
I am going back to this PR point, because I do think this is important. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that as a profession we are very good communicators in the job that we do, but when it comes to communicating to people outside the profession at what we do, we're terribly bad. There are two reasons for that, (1) because we're bad and (2) because the media who we actually need to promulgate the good stories about justice are generally speaking not very interested when lawyers are talking to them. That said, my experience in the three years before this last General Election when what we were trying to do was to make justice an election issue – a basic human right as important as education and health – I have to say that no politicians were interested. The Guardian, as you might expect, kicked it around a bit, and we did run a ballot through a PR campaign. Much to our surprise something like 67 or 71% of those who answered the questions felt that justice was as important, if not more important than the National Health Service. So the public, certainly in that particular ballot, did think that it is extremely important, but it is up to the profession to get the message out there not just by the educating of children and taking them to court and showing them mock trials and so on, but getting the general public to realise that actually justice is an extraordinarily important concept. There isn't any question there, but I just wondered if anybody has got any better ideas as to how we go about educating the media that this is actually quite an important topic.
I will think about this and write back to you, if I may, but if you'll excuse me this is a very quick response and not as fulsome as it probably should be. There are plenty of stories out there today, some further away from home, some closer to home, that really highlight the importance of a justice system. If we look beyond our own borders and look at what's been going in China and Hong Kong recently in relation to some of the arrests of some of the human rights lawyers and some of the booksellers in Hong Kong, these stories are ones that I sometimes feel are reported across the Press widely but not always necessarily in recognition as to what we have here. I do think that sometimes we should focus value on what we have, perhaps by context of real life stories, rather than taking for granted that certain things would not happen closer to home. That's a loose answer but we'll certainly take that away and come back to you.
[1] It was believed that there are about 230 – 240 barristers across the whole profession with a litigation extension to their practising certificate.
2 thoughts on "The new Access to Justice Commission: Update 7 (The Bar Council)"


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25.3.17 17 miles 1:58:57 7.00 min/mile pace.
The Suffolk Winter League X Country held its final event at Haverhill on Sunday 26th and what a great day it was, warm and sunny.
This Sunday 26th March is the last race of the Suffolk X Country Winter League, so this is the last chance to get out there and get muddy!


text:
mdevd
mdevd is a small daemon managing kernel hotplug events, similarly to udevd.
It uses the same configuration file as mdev, which is a hotplug manager integrated in the Busybox suite of tools. However, mdev needs to be registered in /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug, and the kernel forks an instance of mdev for every event; by contrast, mdevd is a daemon and does not fork.
The point of mdevd is to provide a drop-in replacement to mdev that does not fork, so it can handle large influxes of events at boot time without a performance drop. mdevd is designed to be entirely compatible with advanced mdev usage such as mdev-like-a-boss.
Comparison with mdev -d
Recent versions of mdev have a -d option that allow it to run as a daemon. However, mdevd still has advantages over mdev -d:
Better log management: mdev -d logs to a fixed text file, with all the issues it implies (need for the filesystem to be read-write, uncontrollable log file growth). By contrast, mdevd logs to stderr and its messages can be handled by any log infrastructure such as the one provided by a supervision suite.
Better memory efficiency: mdev -d uses its own environment (via putenv() and unsetenv()) to store uevent data for each event. This implies repeated allocations of heap memory. By contrast, mdevd does not use its own environment - it only uses heap memory to compile its regular expressions, which only happens at start and when you reload its configuration file. All the rest of the memory it uses is committed in the stack, and it will never require more. mdevd cannot fail due to lack of memory while it is processing events.
Better speed: mdev -d parses its config file for every event it receives, and has to perform expensive operations such as getpwnam() every time it receives an event (which can add up to hundreds of times at boot!). By contrast, mdevd only parses its config file when it starts - or when it is told to read it again by a SIGHUP; the event processing is streamlined, it does not involve any parsing or any kind of expensive operation - so it is significantly faster.
Independence from busybox: mdev is part of the busybox software. It is an advantage when busybox is also used to provide other functionality, such as coreutils or util-linux equivalents. However, most distributions find that functionality lacking in compatibility (for instance, the busybox implementation of POSIX utilities is often non-conformant), and choose to use alternatives to busybox instead. In that case, having to use the whole busybox configuration and build process just for mdev is a drawback, and the code that gets included in the mdev binary is bigger than it needs to be. mdevd, on the other hand, is independent software, and building it is simple and does not pull in any unnecessary code.
A Linux-based system with a standard C development environment. The Linux kernel must be 2.6.10 or later.
GNU make, version 3.81 or later
skalibs version 2.13.0.0 or later. It's a build-time requirement. It's also a run-time requirement if you link against the shared version of the skalibs library.
Optionally: nsss version 0.2.0.2 or later. It's a build-time and run-time requirement, if you use the --enable-nsss option to configure; but you would only do that if you're replacing nsswitch on your whole system, and most people are not.
Optionally: execline version 2.9.1.0 or later. It's a only a run-time requirement, and only if your mdev.conf file contains +, - or & command directives.
mdevd is free software. It is available under the ISC license.
The current released version of mdevd is 0.1.6.1.
Alternatively, you can checkout a copy of the mdevd git repository:
git clone git://git.skarnet.org/mdevd
There's also a GitHub mirror of the mdevd git repository.
See the enclosed INSTALL file for installation details.
Upgrade notes
This page lists the differences to be aware of between the previous versions of mdevd and the current one.
The mdevd program
The mdevd-coldplug program
mdevd is discussed on the skaware mailing-list.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
When the Beatles came to Hull at the ABC Cinema 1964 show
John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney performed two concerts, for which they were paid £850 each
Ruby PensonNostalgia Reporter
One of the biggest acts that performed at the ABC Cinema in Hull. (Image: Hull Daily Mail Archive)
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Hoards of screaming fans are on show in these incredible throwback photos of The Beatles playing the ABC Cinema in Hull during their 1964 British tour.
The Fab Four played two back-to-back shows due to the sheer demand of the tickets starting on October 16.
The tour was huge for British fans with incredible artists such as Roy Orbison, The Rustiks, Sounds Incorporated, Michael Haslam, The Remo Four, Tommy Quickly, and Mary Wells on the support act list, along with Bob Bain as compère.
Beatlemania returns once again this week with the release of three-part documentary The Beatles: Get Out, from Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson, who directed The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
Police were dotted around the seating areas to ensure fans were under control. (Image: Hull Daily Mail Archive)
It will feature previously unseen footage showcasing the warmth, camaraderie and creative genius that bounced around the band. Private archives have been specially released showing their final live performance on the rooftop of London's Savile Row in its entirety.
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Both the Hull shows consisted of hit after hit on the setlist. Fans were lucky enough to hear Some Other Guy , Do You Want To Know A Secret, Love Me Do, From Me To You, Please Please Me, I Saw Her Standing There, and Twist And Shout live and in person.
They are pictured with 9 year old Anne Escreet who was invited to meet them before the concert. (Image: Mirrorpix)
The doors would have opened around 6.00pm and The Beatles would have been introduced to the stage around 8.30pm. Some of the 800 fans had been waiting outside the venue for days to get their hands on tickets. They anticipated so much of a queue for the box office that they opened at one minute past midnight to get rid of the congestion.
Paul McCartney and George Harrison during their performance. (Image: Hull Daily Mail Archive)
Read more nostalgia stories from HullLive on our dedicated page here.
It was after this show that they had a small break, taking a couple of days off from the tour before heading up north to Edinburgh. Hull's ABC Cinema - later named Cannon - was demolished in 2004 leaving these photos as the only reminder of that night.
It would have been a huge year for The Beatles in 1964, with the band having completed a World Tour over the summer taking the Fab Four from Copenhagen to Auckland.
Fans who stayed out to queue outside the ABC Cinema in early on to get tickets for the Beatles performance. (Image: Hull Daily Mail)
Do you remember seeing The Beatles at the ABC Cinema in 1963? Let us know in the comments.
Inside the abandoned Hull school left to rack and ruin


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MARIE WAINWRIGHT: PORTRAIT OF A THEATRE ACTRESS (PHOTOGRAPHED BY SARONY)
PHOTO 2 (SOLD)
These cabinet cards feature Marie Wainwright (1853-1923), an American stage actress and singer. She also appeared in three silent films between 1918 and 1920. Most of her fame came from the Victorian stage. She was born in Philadelphia and as educated in Paris, France. She received her acting training in Paris. Her first stage appearance was in New York in "Romeo and Juliette (1877)". Her career flourished afterward. She spent many years in the Boston Museum company and later on, operated her own theatre company. During her career, she was the leading lady for Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, and other well known actors. She appeared primarily in classics and high dramas until the turn of the century. She then appeared in more contemporary productions. Her resume includes roles in "H. M. S. Pinafore" and "Diplomacy". When asked why she entered the acting profession, in a New York Times interview (1878), she stated that she did it for her children's sake. Wainwright claimed that she was married before the age of fifteen, and had three kids before she turned twenty-one years of age. She stated that her husband was not supporting her and the children, and she needed to work for financial reasons. It appears that the breakup of Wainwright's marriage was a hot news item. The marital conflict was quite dramatic and there were some questions about Ms. Wainwright's character. The top photographic portrait is by Sarony's New York City studio. Sarony was a famous celebrity photographer and other examples of his work can be seen by clicking on the category labelled "Photographer: Sarony". This image shows Wainwright wearing a white gown and bonnet. She is holding a book and rosary beads.
The second cabinet card was also photographed by Sarony. Miss Wainwright certainly was a pretty woman. The reverse of the cabinet card has an inscription describing some aspects of her career. There is also a stamp from a photographic supply dealer on the photo's reverse. The dealer is C. E. Hopkins whose business was located in Brooklyn, New York. Mr Hopkins was an excellent self promoter as illustrated by mention of his name and business in several photographic journals of his time. For example, "Photographic Times" (1890) recounts that one of Mr Hopkins's amateur customers produced a series of photographs pertaining to a duel, that Mr Hopkins had shared with the publication. It is likely that this cabinet card portrait of Miss Wainwright once could be found "for sale" in C. E. Hopkins's shop.
on September 27, 2016 at 10:18 am Comments (2)
Tags: Boston Museum, Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, Marie Wainwright, Pinafore, Romeo and Juliettte, Sarony, Victorian Stage, Wainwright
JOSEPH WHEELOCK SR: LEADING THEATRE ACTOR
This cabinet card features stage actor, Joseph Wheelock Sr. (1839-1908). He began his careeer in Boston and later played leads in various stock companies. His first hit was his appearance in "The Stranger". His principal stock company was the Meech Brothers. During his career he appeared with many of the most renowned theatre actors. His fellow cast members included Edwin Booth, Agnes Booth, Adelaide Neilson, Mary Anderson, Edward Sothern and Julia Marlowe. Wheelock was one of the founders and the first President of the Actors Society of America. The society was organized in 1895 and its purpose was to regulate and standardize contractual obligations between performers and producers. The group dissolved in 1912. This cabinet card was photographed by Napoleon Sarony of New York City, one of the most popular celebrity photographers of this era. To see other photographs in the Cabinet Card Gallery by Sarony, click on the category "Photographer: Sarony". It is important to note that Joseph Wheelock Sr. had a son who was also an actor. Judging by the estimated age of the subject of this photograph, and the estimated date of this photograph; it seems almost certain that this image is that of Joseph Wheelock Sr., and not Joseph Wheelock Jr.
on August 29, 2010 at 12:01 am Leave a Comment
Tags: Actors Society, Adelaide Neilson, Agnes Booth, Edward Sothern, Edwin Booth, Julia Marlowe, Mary Anderson, Sarony, Wheelock
EFFIE ELLSLER: STAGE ACTRESS
This is a Cabinet card portrait of stage actress Effie Ellsler (1855?-1942). She was born in Cleveland, Ohio where her parents were actors and ran a leading playhouse. She made her debut as a child and as an adult had opportunities to act with Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett and other celebrities during their Cleveland tours. Ellsler came to New York in 1880 and was a sensation in her first part in the title role of Hazel Kirke. She played that role for three years but than made a series of poor starring role choices in a number of melodramas. For most of the 1890's she toured in road companies. She later played with Maxine Elliott in the Merchant of Venice. Ellsler's last hit was in the Bat (1920). This Cabinet card portrait is from the esteemed studio of Charles Ritzmann of New York City.
on January 13, 2009 at 12:42 am Comments (2)
Tags: "cabinet card", Charles Ritzmann, Cleveland History, Edwin Booth, Ellsler, Hazel Kirke, Lawrence Barrett, Maxine Elliott, Merchant of Venice


I really love the fact that they explain everything up front. I feel like they really care about me and my family. Dr. Daza is so accommodating and one of the sweetest doctors I have ever met. You can tell that she cares about her patients and staff. The hygienists are also so wonderful and I always love how my teeth feel afterward.
Bucktown Wicker Park Dental is definitely a treat. I had a bad experience at another dental office and was a very skeptical coming in. My dentist is the best, in my opinion, and they made me want to enhance my smile.
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I can talk to Dr. Daza for hours. She's great at consulting and makes every appointment fly by. The staff is always so friendly and they make it an enjoyable experience.


Living Rome Ottaviano B&B is situated in Rome, 900 metres from Castel Sant'Angelo and 900 metres from The Vatican.
A flat-screen TV, as well as a computer are featured. You will find a kettle in the room. Extras include free toiletries and a hair dryer.
You will find a 24-hour front台東伴手禮票選 desk at the property.
The bed and breakfast also offers car hire. St Peter's Square is 900 metres from Living Rome Ottaviano B&B, while St. Peter's Basilica is 1 km away. The nearest airport is Ciampino Airport, 17 km from Living Rome Ottaviano B&B.


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A leading Australian Muslim has left for Iraq in a bid to help free an Australian held captive by Iraqi fighters, but he may be unable to beat the deadline.
Shaikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali will not arrive in Baghdad before the fighters' deadline on Tuesday for Australia to withdraw its troops from Iraq before they kill captive Douglas Wood.
"He's (al-Hilali) hoping [the fighters] have heard his call and the deadline will be extended," Kayser Trad, a spokesman for Australia's Islamic community, said.
Al-Hilali made a televised appeal in Arabic to the fighters holding Wood, a 63-year-old Australian engineer who lives in California and is married to an American. The appeal was broadcast on Aljazeera over the weekend.
"We are going to Iraq to help our Australian brother. We feel for Australians and we will do our best to bring our brother, Douglas Wood, home," al-Hilali said at Sydney airport before leaving.
Al-Hilali is the 64-year-old Mufti of Australia's 300,000 Muslims, who make up about 1.5% of the nation's 20 million population.
He made headlines in 2003 when he was charged with assaulting and hindering police and resisting arrest after his car was pulled over. The charges were later dropped.
Egyptian-born al-Hilali was under the spotlight again in 2004 when he described the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States as "God's work against the oppressors". He later said his statement had been misinterpreted.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has said Wood may have been seized from his Baghdad apartment up to two days before a two-minute video was delivered to news agencies in Baghdad eight days ago.
That video showed Wood pleading at gunpoint for Australia, Britain and the US to withdraw troops from Iraq.
The fighters released a second video on Friday demanding Australia start withdrawing its troops within 72 hours.
Al-Hilali told the fighters in his televised appeal that he valued their jihad, but called upon them to release Wood for the sake of the Australian society, "which does not support [Prime Minister John] Howard's pro-American policies".
Australia's conservative government, a staunch US ally that was among the first to join the war on Iraq two years ago, has stood firm on its refusal to give in to the fighters.
A new batch of 450 Australian troops is due to arrive in southern Iraq in the coming weeks to provide security and train the Iraqi army, taking the total number of Australian troops in and around Iraq to about 1400.
Opinion polls taken in May last year indicated that nearly two-thirds of Australians believed the war on Iraq was unjustified. Half of Australians believed it was not worth sending troops to Iraq, while 40% backed the decision.
Howard won a fourth straight term last October by crushing centre-left opposition Labour, whose leader had vowed to bring Australian troops home by Christmas.


Rural Development Secretary of State H.E. Try Meng today chaired the opening of a reflection workshop on Cambodia Rural Sanitation and Hygiene Improvement Programme phase 2 - known in short as CRSHIP2, organised at Himawari Hotel here in Phnom Penh.
"The workshop will allow us to see the progress of our work as well as the challenges, so that we together can address and get going on the right track to further ensure improved sanitation in our target provinces," addressed H.E. Try Meng.
Globally, diarrheal disease is the second leading cause of death among children under five years old. One fifth of Cambodia's child mortality is caused by diarrheal infections mainly driven by poor sanitation and the practice of open defecation. Diarrhea affects small children most.
Sanitation contributes positively to child nutrition as well as their physical growth and cognitive development. According to the Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey 2014, in Cambodia more than 32 percent of children under five years old are stunted, 24 percent underweight, and 10 percent wasted.
Executed by Plan International Cambodia and partners in close cooperation with Ministry and Departments of Rural Development, both the first and second phases of CRSHIP have been funded by the Global Sanitation Fund and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council since 2011.
According to the Country Director of Plan International Cambodia Mr. Jan Jaap Kleinrensink, during the first phrase of CRSHIP implementation from 2011-2015, over 600,000 people (about 50 percent of them are children) especially those poverty stricken and live remote communities, have successfully adopted the use of latrines.
The programme freed 734 villages in Takeo, Kandal, Kampong Speu, Kampong Cham and Svay Rieng from open defecation and villagers habituated better personal hygiene.
In its second phase, so-called CRSHIP2, the programme is on the threshold of phasing in five other provinces, namely Kampot, Prey Veng, Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Thom, and Kratie, which are most deprived of sanitation access. It will run until December 2018.
"In one of my recent field visits, I am so inspired by smiles of community children and their impression. Several of them told me how happy they are to have latrine at home so that they don't need to go to the bush to answer the call of nature, especially in the rains. Like some of you here, being a parent I cannot imagine risking my kids' security with something as simple as answering the call of nature, let alone other implications of the absence of sanitation facilities," added Mr. Jan Jaap Kleinrensink.
H.E. Try Meng expressed his appreciation with the result of the phase one CRSHIP and repeated his support for the implementation of CRSHIP2.
The Royal Government of Cambodia through the Ministry of Rural Development along with development partners has made remarkable progress in the area. As a result, nearly half of rural Cambodians are now having access to improved sanitation, compared to only 11 percent in 1990.
CRSHIP2 is committed to join hands with the government to reach its goal of ensuring 60 percent of Cambodians with access to improved sanitation across the country by 2018.
The three-day reflection workshop, from Aug. 9-11, is attended by over 50 officials from the Ministry of Rural Department and its line departments relevant and representatives from like-minded nongovernmental organisations.


This week's theme on Muffin Tin Meal is a fun one! Groovy 60's. I made this groovy lunch for Heidi.
Amy, Rose & Heidi went out on a modelling call this morning and I made them some little snack bentos to take. They went out for ice cream after so they weren't terribly hungry at lunch time. I made one muffin tin meal for Heidi because she was still hungry, plus several boiled eggs because they are a favourite and they would all want one as soon as they saw them. Most of this lunch was eaten plus all of the boiled eggs. Here are the others.
I did these the lazy way. Click here for a full tutorial. After I unwrapped the first egg I just used the same dye filled Viva paper towel to wrap the others. You can tell the first two have more of the individual colours showing and then the last two are all blendy. I think this is a fun way to dye Easter eggs - I must remember it next year!
We are not all that experienced in dyeing eggs. When making lunch, I made these first and as soon as they were dry we ate them. It took only the amount of time to finish making lunch for them to be OK to peel. I *think* if you put dyed eggs in the fridge and then take them out to pack in lunch they would sweat and possibly the dye would run. I am not positive but I would test that out if you wanted to make these for a packed lunch.
Edited to add: there have been a few questions about the egg -- I dyed the shell only, once peeled the boiled egg inside was still white.
The tie dye egg is totally awesome! I'm loving your groovy muffin tin meal!
Aaahhh this is so cute! I really dig those tie dyed eggs! Thanks for linking up to Meatless Monday!
Love this! It is totally hippy 60's - LOVE the tie-dye eggs!


With the FSA-75 fan controller the fan can be set to three different voltages. The voltages available on the FSA-75 are 5V, ± 7V and 12V.
With the case fan connected to a lower voltage, the fan speed will reduce, this results in less noise.
Fan controllers, whether controlling single or multiple fans, can simply control the fan speed. Voltage regulators and fan resistors are simply other names for a fan controller. In some cases fan controllers can also monitor the temperature of the fan and various locations inside your PC. Using a front-mounted fan controller with temperature monitoring allows the quiet computer user to produce the quietest computer possible, while still maintaining a sufficiently cool environment for their PC components.


Every meeting, before President Bob Skorczewski calls for new and old business, he asks the members of the UIS Student Government Association and meeting attendees to stand and honor their country by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
He realizes, as most involved in politics do, that the political system wouldn't be where it is today without the basic principles the nation was founded on.
Skorczewski, who is originally from Nashville, Ill., first became interested in politics in high school, and after serving his first term for the Senate-at-Large, Skorczewski said he began to find that politics and government contained many more "niches that needed to be filled" than he originally thought.
Skorczewski then ran for vice president his junior year and served as Sergeant-at-Arms his senior year. Now, as a graduate student in political studies, he has stepped up into the role of president.
The student government association is made up of 16 main positions, 14 of those being voting positions. There are also 20 committees, subcommittees and councils.
Skorczewski said his decision to attend UIS rested largely on the excellent "public affairs package," and the opportunity to get to know his professors and mentors on a more personal level.
As president of the student body, Skorczewski said he has many plans for not only the government and the students, but for the university as a whole.
And in working with other student government presidents this term, Skorczweski hopes that a coalition called the Illinois Students Coalition will be formed that will be able to lobby the state and federal governments as a voice for students, which he believes is a part of the population that is often overlooked.
When he's not governing the student body or attending classes, Skorczewski serves as a research assistant for the Center for State Policy and Leadership, locating and researching grants and implementing forums for the center.
Through each of his roles, Skorczewski is hoping to get students at UIS more involved in the center and politics in general.


text:
Remember the HPV vaccine? It really works.
Seems I just can't stress this enough. "Prevalence of HPV After Introduction of the Vaccination Program in the United States":
BACKGROUND: Since mid-2006, human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination has been recommended for females aged 11 to 12 years and through 26 years if not previously vaccinated.
METHODS: HPV DNA prevalence was analyzed in cervicovaginal specimens from females aged 14 to 34 years in NHANES in the prevaccine era (2003–2006) and 4 years of the vaccine era (2009–2012) according to age group. Prevalence of quadrivalent HPV vaccine (4vHPV) types (HPV-6, -11, -16, and -18) and other HPV type categories were compared between eras. Prevalence among sexually active females aged 14 to 24 years was also analyzed according to vaccination history.
Do I even need to cover the background? We recommend the HPV vaccine for all kids now, but back in 2006, we started recommending it for girls age 11-12 years old. Does it work?
Researchers looked at NHANES data and specimens before the vaccine (2003-6) and after (2009-12), looking at HPV prevalence. Specifically, they were interested in the prevalence of the certain subtypes of HPV that the vaccine should prevent.
Before the vaccine era, the prevalence of these HPV subtypes was 11.5% in girls age 14-19 years; after, it was 4.3%. In women age 20-24 years, it declined from 18.5% to 12.1%. No changes occurred in older age groups.
The prevalence differed hugely depending on whether girls had been vaccinated. Among those who were unvaccinated, it was 16.9%. In those who were vaccinated, it was 2.1%,
Not enough girls are being vaccinated. About 40% of girls and 20% of boys age 13-17 are covered.
This is national data. Those who were vaccinated saw the prevalence of those subtypes of HPV drop dramatically. Those who weren't, didn't.
At what point can I drop the mic?
HPV, immunizations, vaccines


Bos Meadery uses local ingredients for a variety of tastes.
Several weeks ago, flush-faced Madisonians gathered in an East Washington Avenue tasting room to admire the work of 13 female artists, while sipping one of the world's oldest fermented beverages — mead.
While this ambiguous drink may conjure up images of vikings and wizards — Albus Dumbledore did enjoy the oak-matured variety — Bos Meadery has been brewing for modern tastes since 2012.
Mead at its most basic is fermented honey, a crop that was widely available to early hunter-gatherer societies. In fact, the earliest archaeological evidence for mead dates back to 3000 BCE in places diverse as Africa, China and Greece. The alcohol content ranges from eight to 20 percent ABV, with the taste generally appealing to cider, beer or wine drinkers.
Bos Meadery co-founder Colleen Bos became enamored with the ancient beverage as an avid home brewer, concocting a dry version for herself while struggling to find any to purchase elsewhere. Perhaps it was a match made in heaven — Bos boasts two masters in medieval history, citing a dedication to those "on the margin of culture" as inspiration for her degrees, and by extension, mead.
"I already had an appreciation for the history and the romance story of mead as the world's oldest fermented beverage," Bos said.
Today, mead (or "honey wine") is widely popular in Eastern Europe and Ethiopia. But Wisconsin may be an even more ideal home for this well-traveled beverage. Bos cited the wine concept terroir — which describes the relationship between where the grape is grown and the flavor of the wine — as similarly applicable to mead.
Though Bos described the locally-sourced Badger state honey as relatively light and less spicy, it's not nearly the only contributing factor to the flavor palate. The meadery produces a wide variety of the product for different tastes, ranging between a malty concoction with buckwheat honey to an effervescent pomegranate mead recommended for brunch.
And honey is not the only Wisconsin product in the limelight. Door County cherries have made an appearance, and Bos teased a velvety, winter mead combining vanilla bean with Roots Chocolate.
Complex flavors are not the only way Bos Meadery is innovating the mead industry. Co-founder Peter DeVault dabbled in yeast microbiology to create a better, faster product.
While the fermentation process had previously taken six months to a year, DeVault lowered the timeline to six to eight weeks without sacrificing quality. Though the process is labor intensive — the honey must be slowly and continually added — it allows for healthier, happier yeast and equally happy drinkers later.
Evidence of mead consumption can be found on every continent, but it's certainly making a contemporary comeback right next to campus. It can be found at various restaurants, liquor stores and of course in the Bos Meadery tasting room if PBR just isn't making the cut.
Outside: Thick copper color, similar to scotch or bourbon, served in a goblet.
Inside: Brewed to be still and semi-sweet.
Taste: Offers a strong, rich honey aroma and flavor. Ultimately, the mead succeeds in balancing these sweet undertones with an earthy wallop seemingly straight from the hive.
Mood: Don't be surprised to find a bottle mysteriously sitting on a swing in the middle of a northern Wisconsin meadow.


KIngsbrook Jewish Medical Center is one of three hospitals in central Brooklyn that is part of the newly merged Healthcare System known as One Brooklyn Health. As part of the vital Brooklyn focus planned for the communities in Brooklyn, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center has a great opportunity for a full time License Psychiatrist to work in our new beautiful 25 bed inpatient adult unit.
This position includes leadership and teaching appointment opportunities and input to the development of service delivery model for our new healthcare system that will also include an ambulatory medical village partnership approach as well.
The professional we seek must be a dynamic clinician-Educator with experience working on a state-of-the arts inpatient psychiatry teaching unit. Must have experience with direct patient care working with an interdisciplinary team is key for success as well as instrumental in the education of second year residents coming from our SUNY Downstate partnership.
This exceptional opportunity builds on the long standing history of psychiatric services provided to this multi-cultural community. Designated as a Center of Excellence for Psychiatric Services, you will be in great company to continue and grow your career.


Carbon dioxide emissions produced by cars have reached an all-time low in Britain, but industry experts think the damaged image of diesel could halt the progress of this 19-year trend.
At the end of 2016 the average new car in Britain produced 120.1g of CO2 per km, which is 1.1% lower than the year before and a third of the value from 2000. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) cites the increase in popularity of diesel cars as the most significant contributor to this reduction, with the average diesel emitting 20% less CO2 than the average petrol car.
However, due to diesel's higher output of nitrogen oxide (NOx), which is linked to respiratory problems in humans, many politicians, including London Mayor Sadiq Khan, are considering penalising drivers of the highest NOx polluters.
The resulting damage to diesel's image could reduce sales, something the SMMT argues would hinder the UK's progress in CO2 reduction. It added that the latest diesels are significantly more efficient than older models.
"For [the UK's reduction in CO2] to continue, modern low-emission diesels and alternatively fuelled vehicles such as plug-ins, hydrogen cars and hybrids must be encouraged with long term incentives," said SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes.
Plug-in hybrid models are often labelled as a cleaner alternative to diesels, and the UK's demand for this segment is the highest in Europe, representing 23.8% of total sales and ranking ahead of France and Germany.
But growth in the segment slowed by 18.1% in 2016, and industry experts predict the trend to continue with the introduction of new tax brackets in Britain next month. The updated Vehicle Excise Duty rates will move 66% of alternatively fuelled vehicles from tax exemption to being subject to a £130 flat-rate annual fee, meaning one of the strongest pull factors for plug-in cars will be removed.
"with the average diesel emitting 20% less CO2 than the average petrol car." but chucks out lots more deadly NOx and tiny bits of soot for the lungs. I think a bigger reduction in CO2 is probably down to more efficient small Turbo Petrol engines over the last 5 years which is why they're having to change the taxing system again. As to "but industry experts think the damaged image of diesel could halt progress of this 19-year trend" they're just protecting their investment!
Based on official CO2 figures?
Small petrol cars have consistently achieved around 40-50mpg for the last 50 years or so. Improvements in engine efficiency, reduced friction, aerodynamics etc have pretty much been offset by much heavier cars capable of more performance. Most of the real CO2 improvement is as a result of the shift to diesel with its inherently better thermal efficiency. The true measure of CO2 is simply the amount of fuel sold (since a given weight of fuel produces a fixed amount of CO2). This takes into account the whole vehicle population, distances travelled, everything. I wonder how this correlates with the apparent improvements being measured on the current test cycle?
Too late, the government has already turned its back on low polluting vehicles by increasing the road tax to £140 irrespective of co2 or any other emission, my wife's mii is a relatively low polluting petrol car as is a Toyota hybrid, from April these will be taxed at the same rate as higher polluters so no incentive at all to buy low polluting cars. Forward thinking our government isn't it.
[quote=si73]Too late, the government has already turned its back on low polluting vehicles by increasing the road tax to £140 irrespective of co2 or any other emission, my wife's mii is a relatively low polluting petrol car as is a Toyota hybrid, from April these will be taxed at the same rate as higher polluters so no incentive at all to buy low polluting cars. Forward thinking our government isn't it.[/quote] yup, and allowing the monopoly of rapid chargers by one company and let it charge ludicrous fees, killing off use, and reducing subsidises on vehicles, I know it wasn't popular with many, taxpayers money funding vehicle purchasing but it was necessary to make it viable for early adopters to kick start the change, its now in danger of stalling. Manufacturers are not helping by modding existing models to EV and Hybrid giving us less attractive compromised vehicles.
[quote=si73]Too late, the government has already turned its back on low polluting vehicles by increasing the road tax to £140 irrespective of co2 or any other emission, my wife's mii is a relatively low polluting petrol car as is a Toyota hybrid, from April these will be taxed at the same rate as higher polluters so no incentive at all to buy low polluting cars. Forward thinking our government isn't it.[/quote] If you drive any distance, surely the cost of fuel,and the tax you pay on it is the financial incentive to buy and use an economical car? Road tax is a small part of the cost of running most cars. If you buy a relatively cheap car for say £10,000 you will lose around £6,000 in depreciation over 3 years, quite possibly more. Paying £140 a year road tax, instead of £30 will hardly make much difference, will it? It might amount to an extra 5% cost over the 3 years, much less when you add in fuel costs too.
Well it did to us, we bought the mii because we liked it but we also like fiestas and the 1.25 fiestas when we bought ours had good deals but are £110 to tax instead of £20, we looked at cars in a price range not size range, we discounted this and several others for the same reason, in the 18 months we have had it we have done about 5k miles so the small fuel economy differences were largely irrelevant but I don't want to pay anymore than I have to on rfl, I am sure I am not alone. If I was buying after April there would be no incentive to get the lower emitting mii, also why would you pay for the eco version that drops the co2 below 100g/km when both models are now the same price to tax? I do agree with you though that if you are a high mileage user you will probably buy the most economic and therefore low emitting car you can.
Would n't a more realistic figure be annual fuel sales?
No doubt CO2 emissions were mush lower in the past when there were fewer cars. There's lots more to question in this article and in the SMMT press release. For example who says new diesels are cleaner? The official Euro test process? We already know that is seriously flawed. Plus all plug-in cars are not getting a tax hike, only hybrids. This will encourage people to buy pure EVs, which makes sense because they do the most to reduce local air pollution. Plus turning our back on diesel (if only) won't cause an increase in CO2 from cars if EVs are further incentivised, as they are in Norway. So take this article with a pinch of salt. Or more accurately, a pinch of particulates.


Genuine late 1800's large cast iron "Medicis" planters from the Loire valley in France. These planters were in a country house in the domain of the Chambord castle in the Loire Valley. Planters have a lovely patina and are in beautiful condition.


text:
import FileSaver from 'file-saver';

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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Charles Stanley Mobile App
Jun 01 2014 December 15, 2015
Role: Lead Architect for the mobile projects and Lead Developer for the iOS app.
Client: Charles Stanley
Links: Apple App Store
The Charles Stanley Direct mobile APP is the company's first foray into smart applications and delivers news, features and research from the country's leading direct-to-consumer investment platform. Charles Stanley Direct is an award-winning and innovative digital service backed by one of the country's longest established investment management companies (Charles Stanley Group PLC) who can trace its origins back to 1792 and whose name first appeared on the London Stock Exchange in 1852. Always a leader and innovator, Charles Stanley Direct is the digital and mobile-ready arm of this £20 billion business and continually tops comparison tables in the UK against the leading D2C platforms. Recently the company was voted as "leading Innovation in Consumer Platforms" at the Aberdeen UK Platform Awards 2015 and was also named by Boring Money as the "best for ISA accounts at £10,000". Charles Stanley Direct continues to deliver outstanding personal service to its digital D2C clients and challenges the longer established players with continual upgrades, pricing models and products.