Absolvitor: Scots Law Online

For some considerable time (20 years or more), people in Scotland who knew about such things would have told you that the parents of children with special educational needs (or, latterly, additional support needs) have the same rights to make a placing request as other parents. However, they were just plain wrong. We now know – thanks to the judgement of the Lord President, Lord Hardie and Lord Macphail in W.D. v. Glasgow City Council [2007] CSIH 72 – that the right to make a placing request is restricted if you child has additional support needs. Restricted, that is, to the boundaries of the local authority area in which you happen to live.

Three cheers, then to the Scottish Government who are proposing to reverse the Inner House’s decision and give the parents of pupils with additional support needs the right to make a placing request to whichever school they damn well please!

However, it appears that this seemingly uncontroversial proposal has caused some concern in certain quarters. Discussion on this point has reached the national media.

Check me out! I am quoted with my Govan Law Centre hat on in these articles:

• Hope for Children who Need Help in Class, The Herald 28 July 2008
• The Hidden Cost of Choice, The Herald 29 July 2008
• Govan Law Centre Welcomes Support for Change in Classroom Choice

I’m just back from my holidays in Aviemore – and what a nice time we had. Among the highlights of the trip were the number of red squirrels we saw. Never having seen even one before, I was delighted. If you like to see some too, I’d recommend the feeding station at the Inshriach Alpine Nurseries – where they do very nice cake as well.

I’ve uploaded some footage from our camera to YouTube, which should appear as a 15 second clip below.

Please note, that as this helpful guide from the Highland Red Squirrel Group points out, thanks to the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 it is now an offence to “intentionally or recklessly:

• kill, injure or take (capture) a Red Squirrel;
• damage, destroy or obstruct access to any structure or place which a Red Squirrel uses for shelter or protection; or
• disturb a Red Squirrel while it is occupying a structure or place which it uses for that purpose.

While you’re in the area, you may also wish to locate solicitors in the Highlands.

Direct Line has won a judicial battle to prevent rivals esure from using a mouse on wheels logo. The judge ruled that it was too similar to Direct Line’s logos and might lead to confusion.

Direct Line has used a phone on wheels since 1990. Subsequentlt, esure introduced a mouse on wheels in 2004. A mouse on wheels was then used by Direct Line thus igniting the dispute.

The court agreed esure’s advertising could be confused with Direct Line’s campaign and blocked esure’s application to trademark the logo.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation have ruled that the domain name narnia.mobi should be transferred from the Edinburgh couple who bought it for their son to use for e-mail to the C.S. Lewis Company.

The family have been quoted as saying: “It should have been pretty straightforward. They had to prove that we had made a bad faith purchase, that we had been using it to make money. We provided very clear statements from the internet registration company saying that we had not tried to make any money and yet somehow it has just simply ignored the evidence.”

To look on the bright side, they still have TheQueen.mobi, USPresident.mobi, and holyspirit.mobi – which presumably came as part of a package with JesusChrist.mobi and YHWH.mobi?

In the judgement, significant reliance was placed upon the fact that the family had, following the complaint by the estate of C.S. Lewis, purchased the domains freenarnia.com and freenarnia.mobi. This move was viewed as evidence of bad faith on their part. You can read the decision here: C.S. Lewis (PTE.) Ltd. v. Richard Saville-Smith (Case No. D2008-0821).

News has reached us from the Norwich Evening News that former Celtic FC goalkeeper, David Marshall has been fined £800 for not having a TV licence. This is on top of an existing £90 fine for driving whilst using a mobile phone – which is now overdue and, as yet unpaid. We are told that he also had to pay costs and a £15 victim surcharge – though I’m not quite clear to whom that may be. Is TV licence dodging the ultimate victimless crime?

A spokesman for TV Licensing in East Anglia is quoted as saying: “This demonstrates just how effective our detection methods are. .. We have also introduced high-tech handheld devices which we use alongside the fleet of detector vans.”
And I had always thought that the detector vans were a myth to get TV viewers to behave themselves …

Edinburgh Law Librarian and Blogger, JennieLaw is complaining about a new facebook application which encourages people to gossip anonymously about their friends. Quite correctly, she suggests that the potential for defamatory comments being made in this way could be storing up trouble.
Read the post in full, it’s called Gossipy Facebook.

Quite apart from possible legal action, remember also that whatever facebook says, the goodbook says “A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends.” Proverbs 16:28 (NIV). So just don’t.

Peter Cherbi’s Diary of Injustice in Scotland asks the (not unreasonable) question: why, if the new Scottish Legal Complaints Commission is subject to Freedom of Information legislation, is the Law Society of Scotland not?

He concludes: “What could there be to gain from allowing the Law Society of Scotland to remain exempt from Freedom of Information legislation? Nothing honest, that’s for sure!”

The Scottish Government today published the responses to its consultation on proposed amendments to the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004. There were well over 100 responses including 27 from individuals and, of course, one from the Education Law Unit at Govan Law Centre, which I wrote.

• Consultation Responses
• Response by Govan Law Centre (PDF)

Just came across this and I like it – a lot.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Anyway, the results are very pretty. Here’s one for Absolvitor: Scots Law Online for the last month or so.