Latest legal news from around the world

100 not out

6th June 2008

In a week full of yet more earnest environmental legislation stories, dreary tales of the EU threatening Britain with court action for not quite adhering to the letter of a Directive, and Irish solicitors being struck off for embezzlement, it’s been hard to find a selection of journalism that fits our remit to provide an esoteric mix of news, opinion and quirkiness. But through much trawling we’ve managed it.

We start with a report from Boston, MA, where state legislation on the compulsory teaching of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in schools is being considered. Derek Raschke, a high school kid who recently saved a 63-year-old heart attack victim through CPR, was invited to speak in the Statehouse on the subject. Senator Steve Baddour was in favour of the proposal, adding that it was “a no-brainer. It should happen.” At face value, it’s hard to disagree. But one wonders how often the CPR-educated masses of the future – in Massachusetts and perhaps elsewhere – will actually put their training to practice in societies rife with frivolous personal injury claims against the well-meaning. Let’s hope this is an overly cynical, tabloid headline-influenced reaction to a piece of good news.

From talk of a law on education we move to talk of the education of law, specifically in China. In his excellent Wall Street Journal blog, law school professor Brandt Goldstein dispatches his thoughts from the southern city of Nanning. With a dozen schools of law in the post-Cultural Revolution 1970s rising to several hundred now, legal training in China, like almost everything business-related, is in the ascendancy. But with a 7 percent pass rate for the bar exams, it’s a tough ride for the individuals that are contributing to this progress.

“Tough ride” is certainly one way to describe the recent upheavals of a Montreal busker. Despite a huge following, Rafael Montero was banned last month from his popular street performances. He was finally reissued with a permit not through a softening of the law but by virtue of renewing his membership of the Union des Artistes. “This whole process has been something of a joke – a bad joke”, said Montero. With lawmakers unwilling to budge, the joke looks set to run and run.

Australian solicitor George Bilbie, who’s just celebrated his 100th birthday and 70 years in practice, also looks set to run and run following the renewal of his practising certificate this week. Describing himself as “the last of the old-style family solicitors” this good egg would presumably give short shrift to those Montreal killjoys.

His reaction to a Jamaican solicitor’s article might, like ours, be somewhat less clear-cut. Summarising a number of arcane pieces of legislation from the island’s statute books, the writer highlights laws so bizarre that England’s Apparel Act, 1482, which prohibits all but the king and his family from wearing gold and purple, looks fair and measured.

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