Without Prejudice

Without Prejudice will be back soon, I’m delighted to say, in its usual panel format. But in the meantime today Charon QC and I recorded a special hour-long discussion covering a number of subjects:

• the recent legal “clockup” about Abu Qatada and the decision to refuse his reference to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights;
• Jeremy Hunt, his handling of the BSkyB bid and the statement by Lord Justice Leveson (or “Lord Leveson” as many in the media are calling him) about how his inquiry could be affected by Parliament’s assertion of its rights;
• Lord Sumption’s recent speech about judicial scrutiny of government foreign policy, and what I say is a canard about the Iraq war;
• the quashing of Sam Hallam’s conviction;
• “secret justice”, and
• will the media ever learn to avoid contempt of court?

It’s a wide-ranging talk – I hope it’s as much fun to listen to as it was to make. I’m especially interested in the Iraq “canard”, a belief about legal opinion on Iraq that I think has wrongly – and inexplicably – become accepted as though it were fact.

Listen in the player below, or subscribe through iTunes.