Absolvitor: Scots Law Online

News from the Scottish Government of the
“Enhanced Tobacco Sales Enforcement Programme” launched today. Under this scheme, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs and Trading Standards officers throughout Scotland will be working together to:

• stepping up enforcement of tobacco sales law to prevent underage cigarette sales; and
• stemming the flow of smuggled or counterfeit cigarettes.

Public Health Minister Shona Robison said: “With over a quarter of retailers willing to sell cigarettes to under 18s, it’s clearly an area that must be addressed.”

Colin Baxter from the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland added: “Trading Standards services across Scotland are determined to play their part in this important health initiative by reducing the availability of tobacco products to those under 18 years of age.”

A “sustained” test purchase programme to identify those who continue to sell to under 18s will be undertaken. Those retailers who flout the age restrictions will face legal sanctions, including a maximum fine of £2,500 upon conviction.

According to the Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Abuse Survey (2006) 47 per cent of 13 year old smokers and 82 per cent of 15 year old smokers reported buying cigarettes from a shop. A recent trading standards operation in Glasgow found that a quarter of shopkeepers still sell cigarettes to 16 year olds.

Since October 1st 2007, the minimum age for buying cigarettes was raised to 18.

And, with the health risks of smoking all too clear now, it’s perhaps just as well this new crackdown is being launched.

Read here about how Superman helped in the fight against underage smoking back in 1980.

Dornoch Sheriff Court (exterior, day) as featured on Flickr, courtesy of FoxyPar4, who was on jury duty there.

I am very excited that Damages is back. Series 2 is on BBC One on Sunday evenings. You can still catch the first episode on iPlayer, and from early signs, it looks like it’s going to be another cracker!

Comedian Mark Thomas is to join with National Union of Journalists members in an event to highlight the threat of a new UK law that could be used against press photographers taking pictures of the police.

The Counter Terrorism Act allows for the arrest and imprisonment of anyone whose pictures are “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.

The union is joining with campaigners to organise a mass picture taking session outside London’s police HQ on Monday 16 February, the day the act becomes law.

Mark will be joined outside New Scotland Yard by renowned documentary-maker Chris Atkins, NUJ vice-president Pete Murray and a bevy of photographers.

Photojournalist and NUJ member Marc Vallee said: “The plan is simple, turn up with your camera and exercise your democratic right to take a photograph in a public place.”

There have already been cases of photographers stopped from working by police quoting anti terror laws.

John Toner, the NUJ’s organiser who looks after freelance photographers, said: “Police officers are in news pictures at all sorts of events, football matches, carnivals, state processions, so the union wants to make it clear that taking their pictures is not the act of a criminal.”

“Our members are photographers, not terrorists.”

Roy Mincoff, NUJ Legal Officer, said: “Photographers do not want to endanger the health and safety of the police or the public, but it is important in a democracy that they can do their jobs properly without facing unnecessary legal restrictions.”

The photo taking will start at 11am outside New Scotland Yard on Broadway, London.

As a Welsh rugby fan myself, I was both heartened and disappointed to note on the BBC News website that a travelling fan had had a scrape with the law.

Kristian Bowen, 19, from Neath, admitted assaulting a police officer in Hawick in the Scottish Borders on Saturday. Sheriff Colin McClorey is quoted as saying
“I hope you are thoroughly ashamed – in a real sense you have let the side down here. Welsh rugby supporters have a tremendously high reputation with mutual hospitality with Scottish rugby supporters especially in this area. I hope you show contrition by having a look at your drinking habits and getting them under control.”

He was fined £600 and ordered to pay the officer he assaulted £150.

Photo copyright of Brainless Angel.

Earlier this week, we reported on the case of Caroline Petrie, a nurse from Weston-super-Mare who was suspended without pay for asking a patient whether she would like to be prayed for. Following keen interest from the media, she has been reinstated by North Somerset Primary Care Trust.

Mrs Petrie, a Christian and mother of two, was suspended after her employers discovered that she had asked a patient whether she would like to be prayed for. Mrs Petrie had been told that she could face disciplinary action. On 28th January she attended a disciplinary hearing on the basis that she had failed to demonstrate a “personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity” by offering to pray for the patient.

North Somerset Primary Care Trust, in a statement issued on 5th February, said that they recognised that Mrs Petrie had been acting in the “best interests of her patients” and that nurses did not have to “set aside their faith” in the workplace, and could “continue to offer high quality care for patients while remaining committed to their beliefs”. The Trust also said that for some people, prayer is recognised as an “integral part of health care and the healing process”.

News from the Christian Legal Centre that a nurse from Weston-super-Mare has been suspended from her work for offering to pray for an elderly patient.

Caroline Petrie, a community nurse and a Christian, is facing dismissal for an alleged breach of her code of conduct on equality and diversity.

Mrs Petrie, who is married mother of two, has been accused by her employers of failing to demonstrate a “personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity” because of her offer of prayer.

She was suspended, without pay, on 17th December 2008 and will find out the outcome of her disciplinary meeting this week. She says she has been left shocked and upset by the action taken against her.

Meanwhile, the elderly patient in question (said to have been taken aback by the offer, which she declined) said: &quotMrs Petrie was a nice lady, did the job properly and was quietly spoken. Personally I wouldn’t want to see her sacked for something like that.”

The Times Online reports that David Hartnett, head of Revenue and Customs, is to write to Scotland’s top civil servant saying that there is no legal basis for a local tax and that the Revenue would refuse to collect it.

The letter to Sir John Elvidge, Permanent Secretary at the Scottish Government, will apparently state:

“[T]here is no legal basis for a local income tax along the lines outlined in the SNP consultation document.”

“Your proposal for a tax where the rate was set by the Executive and the proposed tax was collected and administered by HMRC is a reserved matter under The Scotland Act 1998, and therefore a matter for the UK Government.”

“HMRC does not have the power to collect or administer a local income tax: its role in relation to the devolved administration is confined to administering the Scottish Variable Rate,”

According to The Times, the letter puts pressure on SNP ministers to concede to demands by the Scottish Liberal Democrats to allow all 32 local authorities to set their own local rate.

A spokesperson for the Scottish Government
is quoted as saying: “It’s still arrant nonsense. Scrapping the unfair council tax and introducing a fair local income tax based on ability to pay is a matter for the Scottish Parliament to determine not for the Treasury to dictate from London. This latest intervention is constitutionally confused and politically inept. The Scottish Government and Parliament is not a Whitehall department which can be bullied by the Treasury. We represent a country, and we have every right and ability to scrap the council tax and replace it with a local income tax.”

It may be illegal, but we should probably just press on ahead regardless, eh?

Don’t forget to check out Mike Dailly’s new blog in The Firm Magazine. Entertainingly titled “Dailly’s Weekly Blog” it kicks off with an attack on proposals to introduce ABS (Alternative Business Structure) to the legal profession in Scotland, concluding (with a crescendo) in labelling the SNP Justice Secretary Mr. Kenneth MacAskill “spoon boy”!

LOL! (As I believe they say in cyberspace). It is believed that this is the first time that any serving member of the Scottish Government has been compared to a character in The Matrix. (Although, in a certain light Fiona Hyslop looks a bit like Carrie-Anne Moss). Presumably, Mr. MacAskill will remember that – there is no spoon. Also that Matrix Chambers are English barristers and, therefore not subject to Scottish legislation.

In the first ruling of its kind, a judge has ordered the Royal Bank of Scotland to install a lift so that a wheelchair user can have the same access as any other customer.

Furthermore, in recognising the embarrassing treatment the young man experienced at the hands of the bank, he was awarded £6,500 – the highest ever compensation payout in this kind of case.

In taking the case against the bank with the support of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, David Allen, a 17 year-old wheelchair user from Sheffield, has secured a historic legal victory.

Since the Disability Discrimination Act came into force in 1995, a judge has never before ordered an injunction to force an organisation to make physical changes to its property so that disabled people can gain access.

Mr. Allen’s case will help ensure that a great number of disabled people in Britain are able to access goods, facilities and services. His case was taken with the support of the Commission and he was represented by the Sheffield Law Centre.

David Allen’s legal battle began when, contrary to signage outside his local branch of the bank and information posted on its website, he found that he could not gain access. In a catalogue of incidents, David had to discuss his current account details in the street, breaching his right to confidentiality and causing him significant embarrassment. The bank then suggested that he should use the nearest accessible RBS branch, even though it was a 10 mile journey and amounted to a two and a half hour round trip journey by bus.

Judge Dowse of Sheffield County Court ruled that the Bank discriminated against Mr. Allen by not providing physical access to wheelchair users in its Sheffield city centre branch, and that the bank made no serious attempts to make the branch accessible to wheelchair users as required under the law.

In handing down his judgement, Judge Dowse said:

“In the light of the findings, I have made it is plain that David has suffered from discrimination and that he has suffered from considerable embarrassment caused by the Bank”.

Quoting a previous judgment, Judge Dowse described discrimination against disabled people as “a social evil”.

On hearing the Court’s decision, David Allen said: “I’m glad justice has been done. I only wanted them to comply with the law and provide disabled access so I could get into my bank like my friends.”