Absolvitor: Scots Law Online

You may have read or heard, in various media, the story of Robin Jenkins, the accountant and fraudster who embezzled nearly £100,000 from his employers. He was jailed for almost 5 years by the Sheriff in Falkirk Sheriff Court on Friday.

As it became clear to him that he was facing imprisonment, his solicitor Simon Hutchison recounted, “He basically jumped in a car and visited all the places he ever wanted to visit and was eventually caught in Callander.”

In Callander? He went to all the places he ever wanted to visit and that included Callander? No offence to the good people of Callander, but that certainly wouldn’t top my list. Here’s where I’d go – feel free to add your idea by leaving a comment below.

1. Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil;
2. Geysir, in Iceland;
3. Rocky Mountains in Canada;
4. Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (again);
5. Great Pyramid of Giza, in Egypt;
6. Locations for filming of The Lord of the Rings in New Zealand; and
7. if you have to stick to Scotland, the Italian Chapel in Orkney (again).

Photo: Mogens Engelund, Wikipedia

VoteLaw has drawn my attention to the fact that the Charity Commission in England & Wales has ruled that the think tank set up in memory of the late Labour leader John Smith (the Smith Institute) broke the laws governing charities by getting involved in party politics.

The Commission’s inquiry reconfirmed that the Smith Institute is a charity and is capable of operating for the public benefit. The inquiry also found that the Smith Institute is producing work which falls within its charitable purposes, is of educational value and is freely available to the public.

However, the Commission has concluded that the trustees were not sufficiently engaged to ensure the proper supervision of the charity, given the nature of its activities, work programme and the political environment in which it operates. The trustees did not adequately manage the risks to the independence of the Institute and its reputation.

Andrew Hind, Chief Executive of the Charity Commission, said “Trustees of charitable “think tanks” have a responsibility to ensure the political neutrality of the work they do. When a charity operates close to the political environment, it must safeguard its independence and ensure that any involvement it has with political parties is balanced … it was vulnerable to the perception that it was involved in party politics – never acceptable for a charity.”

AS we previously reported in Squatters in Narnia? there is currently a complaint before the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) concerning the domain narnia.mobi. A decision is expected this Monday (21 July 2008).

The current owners of the disputed domain set out a spirited defence of their claim in this Scotland on Sunday article: Lions versus Lawyers. I note from the article that the couple in question have also purchased holyspirit.mobi which, presumably, will lead to complaints from the Kirk and their legal department in due course.

Internet expert Scott Cleland testified yesterday before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Internet Subcommittee on broadband regulations and privacy, highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach to Internet privacy, and spotlighting the serious privacy threat posed by Internet applications like Google.

“I am concerned that selective oversight of only broadband privacy matters fosters a blind eye to arbitrage of privacy laws by application companies like Google, Yahoo and others,” Cleland said. “This creates perverse incentives for companies not covered by U.S. privacy laws to push the envelope on privacy for competitive advantage.”

Cleland noted that while broadband providers are subject to a host of privacy laws and regulations, Internet applications are not subject to any consumer privacy protections. Cleland called the discrepancy a double standard that Google and others have arbitraged to the detriment of consumers. He said “Americans’ privacy should not be an unrestricted commodity to sell to the highest bidder.” Moreover, Google collects and stores “more private information about more people than any other company in the world.”

“The lack of a holistic, comprehensive and balanced approach to privacy is a serious threat to Americans’ privacy,” Cleland said.

News reaches us that Dumfries and Galloway Council has decided not to purchase Raydale Park, the former home of Gretna Football Club, from the administrators to be used as a sport and leisure centre “on legal advice”.

On the same day, Goal.com reports that the Ugandan Football Association are threatening new Hearts manager Csaba Laszlo with legal action for absconding from work and joining another team.

FA president Lawrence Mulindwa is quoted as saying: “He is still our coach because he did not give us the three months notice in the contract, did not hand over the house, car and other items before he left.”

“We are professional people and hope that Csaba also behaves in a professional manner,”

According to the Office of Fair Trading, the market in personal current accounts is not working well for consumers.

The OFT report on the issue found that much of banks’ revenue from current accounts is derived opaquely, with 81 per cent of income coming from two sources: insufficient funds charges (£2.6bn) and net credit interest income (£4.1bn). A significant number of customers do not know how much they actually pay in bank charges, either before or after they are incurred. Over three-quarters do not know the credit interest rate of their current account, and even those that do lack the means to calculate the interest they forgo.

The complexity and lack of transparency of personal current accounts makes it extremely difficult for individual customers to compare their bank account with other offers. There is thus little incentive for consumers to switch – especially as people generally believe that it is complex and risky to switch accounts. Also, when the switching process does go wrong consumers can find themselves bearing a significant proportion of the resulting costs. The result is that only six per cent of customers surveyed had switched in the last 12 months – one of the lowest switching rates in Europe.

A further result is that a minority of customers end up paying much more for their current account than others – for example, in 2006 1.4m people paid over £500 per year in charges. This can often mean potentially “vulnerable”, low income and low saving customers paying more as a result of incurring insufficient funds charges. The effect is not made any easier by a lack of simple mechanisms for consumers to control or opt out of an unarranged overdraft.

Overall, the report finds that the personal current account market may be stuck in an equilibrium that does not work well for consumers. Limited understanding of key account elements, combined with low confidence in switching, means that banks have less incentive to provide better offers on charges and interest. But without better offers from banks, consumers have little incentive to switch.

The OFT will spend the coming months engaging with banks and consumer groups to try to achieve greater clarity, transparency and consumer empowerment in this market, either through voluntary change or, if necessary, through other routes, potentially including greater regulatory intervention or a reference of the market to the Competition Commission.

• Reclaim Unlawful Bank Charges!

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

BBC News is reporting that Stirling Council may stop charging the elderly for food preparation services. Only eight Councils in Scotland currently charge for the service, and some local authorities have begun paying back people charged for the service.

Scottish ministers plan to introduce new laws on food preparation, as previous guidance “lacked clarity”. However, until new legislation is in force, local authorities have been left to interpret the existing legislation on their own – leading to discrepancies between different areas.

A Scottish Government spokesperson is quoted as saying: “We will work with Scottish councils to ensure the intention and wording of the revised legislation is clear and the charging issue put beyond any doubt once and for all.”

The Scotsman is reporting that a company which pled guilty to polluting of the water environment was fined a mere £3,000 for causing an oil slick that spread for nine miles across the Firth of Forth.

The maximum fine faced by Ondeo Industrial Solutions at Falkirk Sheriff Court, was up to £40,000. The Firth of Forth is designated a Special Protection Area due to the number of wading birds which call it home.

Lloyd Austin, head of conservation policy at RSPB Scotland, is quoted on the subject of fines for environmental crimes in Scottish Courts: “There’s a history of them being so low that they don’t provide an effective deterrent,” he said.

A government run database holding the telephone and internet communications of the entire population would raise serious data protection concerns, the Information Commissioner, warned today. Commenting on speculation that the government is considering the development of such a database Richard Thomas said that it would be “a step too far for the British way of life”.

He continued: “I am absolutely clear that the targeted, and duly authorised, interception of the communications of suspects can be invaluable in the fight against terrorism and other serious crime. But there needs to be the fullest public debate about the justification for, and implications of, a specially-created database (potentially accessible to a wide range of law enforcement authorities) holding details of everyone’s telephone and internet communications. Do we really want the police, security services and other organs of the state to have access to more and more aspects of our private lives?”

In another blow for the Government, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is today serving enforcement notices against HM Revenue and Customs and the Ministry of Defence following recent high profile data breaches. The notices require both departments to provide progress reports documenting in detail how the recommendations have been, or are being, implemented to improve Data Protection compliance. Failure to comply with an Enforcement Notice is a criminal offence.

• Information Commissioner’s Office
• NO2ID Campaign

Further to news of plans for a new law centre for Fife, there’s more good news in the form of Govanhill Law Centre.
Govan Law Centre are to open a Govanhill Law Centre in partnership with the Govanhill Housing Association and Govanhill Community Development Trust.

Following the recent announcement that the Scottish Government is to provide funding for the project from its Race, Religion and Refugee Initiative, the doors will open for business shortly.