The UK's Personal Injury Claim Right May Just Be Removed

The UK is well-known as the "whiplash capital of Europe" because anybody can get guaranteed recompense if they can prove they have whiplash injuries. The number of personal injury claims for whiplash had increased in the UK, forcing the insurance industry to pay more than £2bn yearly, which passes down to legitimate consumers who are paying £90 in addition to their premiums.

Chancellor George Osborne had decided towards eliminating the right to claim personal injury on soft tissue "minor" injuries from motor road accidents as well as whiplash. The Chancellor also aims to introduce a higher limit to the Small Claims Court from £1000 to £5000.

However, this was met with criticism from the Select Transport Committee, who said that individual victims may not represent themselves properly in court. The voice was second-motioned by the Law Society.

The Treasury said that the amount paid per policy was "out of proportion to genuine injury suffered." The Chancellor intends to make a system to avoid exaggerated claims and to end the right to cash compensation.

The STC also condemned the proposal for only consulting with insurers and not the victims of personal injuries, particularly whiplash injuries.

The UK Is In Trouble Over Renewable Energy

The environmental group Friends of the Earth intends to file a legal challenge against the UK government because of its failure to install a viable plan to meet its renewable targets. With the UK's increasing carbon footprints are not doing the country a favour.

Yes, I've been hearing about lots of health issues surfacing, especially with children and the elderly.

Add to this the issue of Volkswagen, whose vehicles a hefty number of the UK population drive, and the environment is having its own party indeed.

About to Miss Its Target

Friends of the Earth will send a formal letter to Energy Secretary Amber Rudd expressing its concerns this week. This follows after the UK revealed it can miss its legally-bound target to generate 15 per cent of its energy from renewable by 2020.

According to Friends of the Earth campaigner Alasdair Cameron:

“Without serious additional action the UK is on course to miss its legally binding renewable energy targets for 2020 – and recently proposed cuts to support for wind and solar technologies will make matters worse.

“We will be writing to the government to set out our concerns and warn of the potential legal consequences if its renewable energy action plan is inadequate. Renewable energy is the future – the government must get on board and help build the low carbon, affordable economy we so urgently need.”

A formal reply from the government said:

“Renewables make up around 25% of our electricity generation and we are on track to meet our ambition for 2020. We continue to make progress to meet our overall renewable energy target.”

Dutch Investigators Accuse Murder on Ukrainian Rebels Of MH370 Incident For The Right Reasons

Last March 2014, a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 went falling from the sky. It carried Asian and majority of Dutch and European travellers coming from the Netherlands to Singapore. Passing over some European states, it went down.

Claims it was shot down by a missile proved true after the remnants indicated a head-on explosion far away from wing engines. To shed further light, Dutch-led investigations begun as majority of the 298 who died on board were Dutch travellers.

After 15 months, the thought that all the passengers died immediately after the incident is far from the truth. While comforting, proper authorities, even the UN, couldn't even administer proper justice for those who had died.

The Horrifying Conclusion

According to the investigators, a Buk missile from the Soviet era had downed the passenger plane March last year. An explosion shattered the cockpit area of the plane. The cockpit crew, including all of its pilots, died immediately.

The same fate wasn't shared by passengers.

Data revealed the passengers were conscious as the hulls were destroyed. However, due to the sudden decompression and the lack of oxygen at 33,000 feet, they saw the aftermath for about 60-90 seconds on air.

Terrifying, at the very least.

Political Motive

Russia had denied involvement with the Ukrainian rebels and said the missile angle was a "biased investigation with a political motive."

The Buk Missile manufacturer had denied its involvement with Ukrainian separatists and the Russian government.

The UN, still trying to use peaceful methods, has garnered very low results.

It seems justice couldn't be served for these innocent lives that have died in the hands of a careless, fatal human error. 

Tories Confirm Scrapping the Human Rights Act in Parliament.

Conservative MPs had confirmed it would scrap the Human Rights Act and have a British Bill of Rights take its place. The House of Commons Justice Minister Dominic Raab said the scrapping is to be done immediately.

Meanwhile, Scottish MPs voiced their opposition against the proposal.

The scrapping of the Human Rights Act meant the UK can persecute and deport any terrorist, war criminal or any human rights offender from their country without the jurisdiction of the ECHR. This also meant it would withdraw its membership from the ECHR.

Data indicates that the ECHR had cleared almost every case involving terrorists, international crime organizations and war criminals.

According to analysts and critics, the scrapping of the Human Rights Act meant further difficulties in criticizing Russia's human rights laws. It would also mean Russia can just disregard its human rights laws and replace it with possibly stringent laws.

Tories stand firm with the idea that there is any weakening of human rights. British Prime Minister David Cameron intends to have the ECHR as an advisor and leave the final decision to Britains' supreme court regarding rulings on terrorists, criminals and others. According to Prime Minister David Cameron, politicians had the duty to restore the 'distorted' reputation of human rights in the United Kingdom.

New Extremism Laws Could Go Too Far

The new legal crackdown on "extremist" ideology and calls for its remit to be extended far beyond what was thought to be its purpose could prove to be too harsh. The new measures will introduce Extremism Disruption Orders that can put down preachers and teachers who talk of Jihad and may also increase anti-Western attitudes among young Muslims.

However, the government said it will apply to "all extremist views". According to Conservative MP Mark Spencer, this could mean that teachers who talk about gay marriage being wrong could be criminalised.

According to his assessment, anybody who holds an orthodox, traditionalist view can be considered a criminal.

The trouble with any legal system is that by introducing new laws for one purpose and not considering the balance of power it give the government, it does not retain the balance. 

Sadly, it is also in the field of counter-terrorism that most of these incidents bear fruit.

In the United States for example, the country has scaled down its powers to identify and stop and search people without reasonable suspicion due to widespread abuse nationwide. Police had extensively used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to investigate sources for newspaper "whistle-blowers".

And the UK's new legal crackdown on "extremist" ideology is not exempted here.

Anti-Drug Groups Are Slamming New Legal Highs Ban

According to anti-drug organisations, the Psychoactive Bill is not enough to serve as a 'panacea' to finally cap legal highs. According to anti-drug organisations the legal highs bill will not protect young people.

The blanket ban on substances is not enough to end the danger of  legal highs in the United Kingdom because there is a lack of education.

The law is still going through parliament and it will prohibit every kind of legal high in the country. Distributors, producers, suppliers and small sellers can face a maximum of seven years for selling legal highs.

The Mentor, the Centre for Social Justice and Angelus Foundation said the legislative approach is not a sure fire solution to end the problem of legal highs. According to statistics, about 50% of young individuals have died from legal highs sold in 'head shops'.

Individual substances were banned at first. But manufacturers used different chemical formulas to place the drug outside the ban.

Despite the ban on legal highs, deemed harmless substances, alcohol, caffeine and tobacco will be given special exemptions.

Anti-drug groups encourage the government to include an educational awareness campaign alongside the ban. They argue the legal change is just a blunt instrument and can only work if the consuming public itself is briefed accordingly.

UK Head Shops May Close Following Legal Highs Ban

Synthetic chemical substances that mimic traditional illegal drugs threaten the closure of hundreds of ‘head shops’ across the United Kingdom.

About 450 high-street shops and online sellers of legal highs will face closure or imprisonment up to seven years under the blanket ban on psychoactive substances.

About 40% profit is what head shops gain from £32m yearly profits.

The psychoactive substances bill will receive its second reading on Tuesday. It may ban the trade in legal highs from April the following year.

The bill will exclude alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and other medical and scientific drugs for research given they have the necessary permits.

Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters gather outside parliament to protest while inhaling nitrous oxide as the psychoactive substances bill covers nitrous oxide, which is the second most popular recreational drug in the UK.

The Home Office attributes several hundred deaths related to legal highs or new psychoactive substances. They note that some of the 173 deaths in England, Wales and Scotland in 2013 were linked to legal high consumption.

An official impact assessment said that only 29 of the cases involved legal highs. 

Caring For Public Legal Information In The United Kingdom

The Freedom of Information act enables the sharing of information to the public effectively. This includes case law information. While you might say it is impossible to know all the legislation in force and impossible to know the common law case by case, the ability to procure needed information at the shortest time possible is a legal right.

So how do we preserve this?

1.    Open Democracy and Courts

Public information accessibility through modern technology is neither difficult nor restricted. Today, legal professionals aren’t the only individuals who could interpret legal information but educated individuals as well.

All legal cases must be published on public channels. This includes all new laws and pending cases. All courts must also understand that all cases are publicly accessible for evaluation of different individuals.

2.    Regulators

You might say freedom is not freedom when regulators are present. Regulators are important because they scrutinize the quality of legal records in the country.

As the “gatekeeper”, they have public responsibilities to report any decision for any pending case. It is important that the public and related individuals know about the decisions to ensure the decision is recognised and does not completely fall out of society and the system.

3.    The Four Kinds of Information

Ideally speaking, if the country puts four types of legal information for public access, namely the initiating documents, oral hearing, the judgment and the orders of the court, then legal information procurement would be easy.

For now, the awesome development of the National Archives and the UK’s official printer the HMSO would be a great addition for the successes of the UK’s preservation of public legal information.

Women Abused in Sharia Law: Hasn’t This Been For Too Long Already?

Who can blame the UK if Sharia Law penetrates the legal system? Well, we all have the reason to blame the UK. In its endeavour to appeal to the Muslim community by including certain elements of Sharia law in banking laws for example, the UK is most likely to have an increased Sharia law presence in the next few years.

According to Muslim women, the UK had betrayed them because of the increasing influence of Sharia law, a legal construct they have condemned from their own homeland.

Baroness Caroline Cox of the British House of Lords had released her 40-page report “A Parallel World: Confronting the Abuse of Many Muslim Women in Britain Today” shows the effects of Sharia law in the UK’s Muslim community.

Baroness Cox cites the Arbitration Act of 1996. This allows parties to resolve troubles in British courts using Sharia principles.

Sharia law fuses the concepts of arbitration and mediation, but has the loophole of a “jurisdiction creep,” which allows them to decide cases related to criminal law, including domestic violence and grievous bodily harm as a result.

It is quite ironic that, while Britain is fighting Islamist extremism worldwide, it is using the same law that the terrorists use to downgrade the non-english speaking Muslim women residing in the United Kingdom back to their fears of the law from their homeland.

It is quite ironic, to say the least.

Emergency Law To Save Ireland From Legalising Drugs

Today, Ireland’s Senate will pass an emergency legislation to ban the possession and use of drugs in Ireland, rendered legal due to a dismissal of a legal add-on perceived to violate certain constitutional laws.

The Court of Appeal put forward that there was a loophole in the existing law that deemed ecstasy, crystal meth and ketamine as illegal highs. This loophole do not affect existing laws regarding the supply, possession and the sale of heroin, cannabis and cocaine.

Within hours of the ruling, the Irish Minister for Health Leo Varadkar had called on introducing an emergency bill as soon as possible to reinstate the ban. The bill was to be “short but important”.

The senate is to present the bill to the president to sign immediately for the law to take effect as soon as Thursday.

Until then, possession and use of the drugs will remain legal.

Laws Protecting The Integrity of Consumer Reviews [Infographic]

Scotland’s Assisted Suicide Law is Flawed

A proposed law in Scotland that would allow terminally-ill and incapacitated people to seek help with suicide could violate some European human rights laws according to legal experts.

The proposal will make assisted suicide or euthanasia lawful in certain circumstances.

Margo MacDonald, who was terminally-ill, had first introduced the law before her death in April. It  was a revision of her previous assisted suicide bill that also failed due to lack of Scottish Parliament support.

The Faculty of Advocates said “If Parliament is to pass legislation to protect persons from what would otherwise be the legal consequences of assisting another person to commit suicide, the Faculty considers it is important that such legislation is clear, readily understood, and not just by lawyers, that key terms are well-defined and not open to a variety of interpretations, and that the penalties for breach of the requirements of the legislation are spelled out.

“Otherwise, persons wishing the protection of the legislation will be unclear as to whether their acts are protected and may render themselves liable to prosecution for serious crimes or subsequent review of their conduct in a civil court.

“The Faculty considers that the Bill as currently drafted may not achieve these essential goals.”

The Law Society of Scotland said the Bill could breach the European Convention on Human Rights.

In England and Wales, the Suicide Act 1961 considers assisting someone’s suicide or suicide attempt is an offence. This is also the same in Northern Ireland.

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