The Gazette 1972

Lawyers attack Law Revision moves 1 lie Criminal Law Revision Committee, which has proposed fundamental changes in the criminal law svstem, was accused yesterday by the National Council for Civil Liberties of "giving respectability to police •Malpractices".

trates could be worked out to do the job. We have also suggested that the decision to prosecute should be taken out of the hands of the police and entrusted to an independent authority." Th e committee's proposals—which also include com- pelling an accused person to enter the witness box and disclosure during a trial of his criminal past—have caused consternation among lawyers and civil liberties groups. The police welcome the suggestions unreservedly. One police chief has commented : " The criminal trial today is less a test of guilt or innocence than a compe- tition . . . a kind of show-jumping contest in which the rider for the prosecution must clear every obstacle to succeed." Ma ny lawyers hold that abolition of the caution would not succeed in catching the professional crim- inal : it would trap only the unwary and those ignorant of police procedures. Mr. David Naplcy, chairman of the Law Society's Standing Committee on Criminal Law, said that guiltv people were alert to their rights : only those confronting a policeman for the first time were likely to need re- minding that they were not obliged to say anything. Crown Courts throughout England and Wales. Trials at these Crown Courts will now be presided over bv circuit judges which will include High Court judges and part-time Recorders. Miss Recorder Heilbron's first case will he to try a 19-vear-old youth sent for trial on hail last April and accused of robbery. In court. Miss Heilbron, 56, will be addressed as "Mv Lady." She is not the first woman barrister to achieve high legal office. Th at distinction goes to Mrs. Justice Eliza legal office. Th at distinction goes to Mrs. Justice Eliza- beth Lane, who was appointed a judge of the Probate. Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court (now the Familv Division) in 1965. Daily Telegraph (4th January 1972) function as a land bank in the restructuring of agri- cultural holdings. It is understood that the Government's land policy is to be reviewed by the Cabinet in the near f u t u re and a number of important decisions are likely to be taken on extending the present time limit of eleven months for leasing land for grazing and on the whole question of the Department of Land's farm restructuring pro- gramme. Th e restructuring of the Land Commission will be made against the background of the Treatv of Rome which aims to give people the right to work or set up business in anv EEC countrv. 123 The Observer (9th April 1972)

Mr. Tony Smythe, general secretary of the Council, said the police were ignoring normal safeguards for suspected persons more and more. Yet the committee, in suggesting abolition of the caution during interrogations, had rejected any counter- balancing safeguards such as the right of an accused's solicitor to be present. He promised an unremitting campaign by the Council to prevent the proposals being "uplemented in their present form. Justice, the all-party lawyers' organisation, opposes the proposals as they stand. Mr. Tom Sargent, its secre- tary, said the Judges' Rules might have provided safe- guards, hut at present they were inadequate and often •lot applied or adhered to. Justice had proposed to the committee that if the caution were to be abolished, tape-recordings should be Used during interrogations; alternatively, only magis- trates should be allowed to carry out questioning of suspects. But the Criminal Law Revision Committee •"ejected both these proposals as unworkable. Mr. Sargent said : "We believe that a rota of magis-

First Woman Judge at Old Bailey A woman will sit as a judge at the Old Bailey for the first time today. She is Miss Recorder Heilbron, Q.C., who has sat as a Recorder at Burnley since 1956.

As a barrister, Miss Rose Heilbron, Q.C., appeared I°r the defence in the famous Cameo mu r der trial in Liverpool in 1950, and at the Old Bailey in 1956, when s fic successfully defended an accused in a Soho affray c ' a se that became known as "the fight that never was". Miss Heilbron, in private life married to a doctor, y^"ill sit as a judge at the Old Bailey under the new Judicial svstem which came into force on J a nu a ry 1st because of the Courts Act of 1971. J obbe ry case The Act abolished the traditional Assize Courts and Quarter Session Courts and replaces them with six

Curbs sought on sale of l and- Policy Statement soon I'he Taoiseac.h, Mr. Lvnch, and the Minister for Lands,

Flanagan, arc to be asked by a number of County ^uniinittees of Agriculture to introduce legislation as s °on as possible prohibiting the sale of land to non- nationals or others who have not been permanentlv re sident in the country for a period of ten years. The request is being made by the committees to ay ert the possibility of land speculation if Ireland be- e t l e s a member of the EEC and to tighten the controls CUr rentlv in operation under the 1965 Land Act. Mr. Flanagan is also being pressed to change the ^ u c t u r e and powers of the Land Commission to en- M>le it to decide priorities in an EEC context and