The Lord Chancellor has not quite gone. Lord Falconer has become Lord chancellor but will be the last to hold the post, which is to disappear shortly. Reading various British papers online, it appears that the Cabinet reshuffle was hasty because Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, suddenly resigned. Lord Irvine, the Lord Chancellor, was intending to resign anyway. So plans in the pipeline were brought forward. According to the Telegraph Online (registration required, costs nothing),

bq. Tory peers accused the Government of announcing a constitutional upheaval “worked out on the back of an envelope”. The Earl of Onslow condemned it as “playing Pooh sticks with 800 years of British history”. Continue reading →

Via Handakte WebLAWg, a large set of links about U.S. criminal justice, criminology and so on, auf der Site von Dr. O’Conner, North Carolina Wesleyan College. In particular the college does an online course on forensic criminology, including a terrorism unit.

For the UK, there is a website of the Criminal Justice System. Leeds University has a site with a lot of international links, including links to German police sites.

Via Handakte WebLAWg, a large set of links about U.S. criminal justice, criminology and so on, auf der Site von Dr. O’Conner, North Carolina Wesleyan College. In particular the college does an online course on forensic criminology, including a terrorism unit.

For the UK, there is a website of the Criminal Justice System. Leeds University has a site with a lot of international links, including links to German police sites.

From BBC News: in a reshuffle, Lord Irvine has retired, and Tony Blair has not appointed a new Lord Chancellor. Instead, he has created a new department of constitutional affairs:

bq. The end of the post of lord chancellor – a title older than that of prime minister – brings to a close a very long chapter in British history

The office of Lord Chancellor destroyed any idea of separation of powers: he was a minister (executive), in the legislature (speaker of the House of Lords) and also in the judiciary (head of the House of Lords as a court). When sitting on the woolsack in the House of Lords, if he needed to ‘change hats’ and speak as a minister, he used to get up and walk a few steps to one side, rather like some impressionists. Continue reading →

From BBC News: in a reshuffle, Lord Irvine has retired, and Tony Blair has not appointed a new Lord Chancellor. Instead, he has created a new department of constitutional affairs:

The end of the post of lord chancellor – a title older than that of prime minister – brings to a close a very long chapter in British history

The office of Lord Chancellor destroyed any idea of separation of powers: he was a minister (executive), in the legislature (speaker of the House of Lords) and also in the judiciary (head of the House of Lords as a court). When sitting on the woolsack in the House of Lords, if he needed to ‘change hats’ and speak as a minister, he used to get up and walk a few steps to one side, rather like some impressionists. Continue reading →

Word division does not play the same part in English as it does in German. German words are very long. Germans learn at school how to divide words. English (and American too, I imagine) children do not learn the rules of word division. We do not divide words in handwritten texts – it looks really odd in English.

I first encountered word division when I used a typewriter. I have given it up now. I prefer a ragged right margin. Many lawyers, English and German, like to justify both margins (Blocksatz). Then, especially in German, you get ‘rivers’ making the page look torn apart. When I overwrite a client’s file in English, I preserve the justification but turn off the automatic word division. Continue reading →