January 26th
Welcome to the Justice Beat, CrowdJustice’s weekly roundup of the most important legal stories from around the web. This week we focus on women’s rights, mental health and the press regulator
Presidents Club and beyond...
1. You'd have had to be hiding under a rock this week not to hear about FT reporter Madison Marriage's undercover report from the Presidents Club. The FT is now reporting that the Attorney General has said it is possible criminal offences were committed; the NDAs women were forced to sign are also under scrutiny.
2. It's almost the centenary of the women's vote, and we were wowed by Dinah Rose QC's recounting of the story of her runner up candidate for the most influential woman in law, unsung hero Gwyneth Bebb, on the Today Programme. Listen to the segment, which also features Maya Foa of Reprieve, at 2'25".
3. A judicial review of the Parole Board's decision to release John Worboys is underway, with one of his victims writing a powerful piece about her experience, and the need she and others have for social justice in the Huffington Post. The JR is being crowdfunded.
Mental health
4. One in four people has a mental health problem, but that doesn't stop insurance companies from making it harder for people with mental illness to get access to cover. The Guardian reports that customers who have experienced mild depression or anxiety, or one-off mental health episodes, are consistently refused life insurance.
5. The Law Society has said that non-consensual medical treatment for people sectioned under the Mental Health Act could breach their human rights. Currently, patients can be held and given treatment without consent for up to six months. Christina Blacklaws, Vice President of the Law Society, said “attitudes and approaches to mental health have moved on since the the Act was written”.
Challenges to the press regulator
6.What's the role of IPSO, the press regulator? The first challenges to its decisions (on whether a column in the Sun referring to "the Muslim problem", breached accuracy and discrimination clauses in the editor's code of conduct) raise fundamental questions about media regulation and IPSO's public accountability, writes the Guardian. The claimant, a part-time student and expert in equality training, is crowdfunding the case.
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This week on CrowdJustice, Help Refugees challenges the Home Office's interpretation of the Dubs Amendment; a victim of the Grenfell tower fire fights for diverse panel on the Grenfell enquiry, and a friend of Charles Salvador challenges the decision to keep him in solitary confinement.
Plus, CrowdJustice founder Julia Salasky in the Independent on why the law is a powerful force for moving the #MeToo movement forward.