Human Rights

The European Convention on Human Rights
The Human Rights Act 1998

We in the Criminal Law Group have for many years appreciated the importance of human rights in the criminal law field and apparent abuses thereof.

All of our members who appear to prosecute for the Crown Prosecution Service have attended the mandatory course on the Human Rights Act.

The fundamentals of the Human Rights Act affect the area of practice of the criminal practitioner more than any other. We aim therefore to ensure that the Human Rights Act is the touchstone of all criminal cases that we appear in.

In the year 2000 we ran 2 highly successful Law Society accredited courses on the introduction of the Human Rights Act, which were attended by a large number of instructing solicitors. If any solicitor would like further details of in house courses we would be prepared to arrange on this subject they are invited to contact one of our two dedicated criminal law group clerks - either David Phillips in London or Stuart Pringle in Winchester.

Members of chambers have been involved in a number of landmark decisions in terms of Human Rights, including R v Preston, the case which changed the law in respect of covert surveillance and intelligence gathering, and from where the term 'Preston Briefing' derives.

A number of members of the group are fluent in the French language, as well as other European languages, and are therefore able to accept briefs where knowledge of a foreign language is likely to be of assistance.