This thesis has four main objectives; a) to provide an understanding of Legal Aid Appeals Tribunals, from a description of individual cases and the activities that occur therein, focusing in the main on those at which an appellant and/or their representative is present; b) to explore the use of documentation in the tribunal practices of tribunal panel members, legal aid clerks, appellants and their representatives; c) to explore the possibilities that post-analytic ethnomethodology as the adopted research methodology allows, and to clarify what this radical research 'programme' entails; and d) taking legal positivism as an epistopic to explore its possible ethnomethodological respecification in light of the descriptions of practice in legal aid tribunals. Although this thesis explores the possibility of post-analytic descriptions it is not a theoretical investigation into post-analytic ethnomethodology, but an empirical investigation of phenomena of legal aid tribunals which allows an exploration of the practical application of post-analytic ethnomethodology. Nevertheless, some clarification is attempted of just what a post-analytic ethnomethodology may entail. Used in conjunction with the description of the use of texts in legal tribunals, the investigation of epistopics, though not a common research practice does here help develop our understanding of the situated nature of legal practical, legal decision making, and legal objectivity. In a wider sense this approach highlights an argument made throughout this research, that texts are both significant and researchable as they are utilised in everyday practices, and do not have to be research solely with reference to an isolated reader and an isolated content.

The main focus of this thesis is the three copyright collecting societies operating in the music field - PRS, which looks after the public performance and broadcasting rights in music, MCPS which is responsible for the mechanical (recording) right in music and PPL which looks after the public performance and broadcasting rights in sound recordings. Between them, these three societies had gross revenue (before costs) of over £83 million in 1983, of which PRS was responsible for 72%, MCPS for 17% and PPL for 11%. The thesis attempts to investigate their operations and performance. In many ways they are similar but there are also important differences especially between PRS and PPL on the one hand and MCPS on the other. They all depend for their operations on the concept of collective licensing – that copyright owners can more effectively exploit their copyrights by banding together in societies such as PRS, MCPS and PPL. In many cases, collective licensing represents the only possibility for the copyright owner to receive income from his copyright. All three societies also use blanket licences in their operations to various extents this means that licensees can use the entire repertoire of the society on payment of royalties and provided they supply the society with returns of their music use (on which the society bases distributions to members). Since PRS and PPL are effective monopolies, representing virtually all copyright owners in their respective fields, such licensing can be effective. MCPS is an effective monopoly only in the broadcasting field and it is only in this field that it employs blanket licensing. The other fundamental differences between MCPS and the other two societies are its agency relationship with its members and its charging of a commission to cover costs. All of this is looked at in detail.

This thesis is concerned with social inquiry and/or pre-sentence reports in criminal cases. These reports are compiled by probation officers, at the request of the court, to assist the court in reaching an appropriate sentencing decision in some criminal cases. This study takes place against and draws upon a wealth of material that has contributed to what is now a considerable body of knowledge but which has also left gaps in our understanding of the ways in which probation reports are constituted and constructed and the implications of this to the wider administration of justice. Empirical accounts of probation reports have largely consisted of documentary analyses or quantitative data. The inherent partiality of these approaches has meant that reports have been artifically decontextualised from their operational moorings. Probation practice has been theoretically located along a care-control continuum that has reflected the historical evolution of sentencing strategies and state intervention into welfare practice. The aim of this thesis is to present a contextualised account of probation reports. In order to unravel and reveal the processes, philosophies and strategies related to report writing and to address the impact of these in the judicial arena, the study was conducted from a grounded observational perspective that acknowledges the complexities of report compilation at the interactive, organisational and systems levels. In adopting this approach it is clear that the care-control model that has been applied to other areas of probation practice is not necessarily conducive to the practice of report compilation because whilst it applies to the role of the probation officer in relation to supervising offenders, it is not readily transferable to the relationship that exists between report writers and sentencers. This relationship is extremely important to both the impact and the content of reports, to the extent that the offender becomes incidental. as opposed to central, to the final document if not to the process. I suggest therefore that, whilst different areas of probation practice are not mutually exclusive, probation reports might be understood in terms of a role-function model. The role of the report writer and the function of the report emanate from an historical context that continues to have an impact on contemporary probation practice but which has rarely been the object of study at an operational level. This thesis attempts to redress the theoretical and empirical balance by adopting a qualitative approach that incorporates an historical perspective into the analysis.

This study considers the competence of lawyers. in carrying out the work of interviewing their clients and the value of training and experience in acquiring client interviewing skills. Literature on legal skills is first surveyed to assist in understanding the concept and help decide on methodology. Literature on client, interviewing' and the educational value of experiencee reviewed to provide background to subsequent studies. The first study provides an overall framework for solicitors' work and monitors, through observation and questionnaire, the work of a number of solicitors over a four day period. Client interviewing is found to take up a larger proportion of solicitors' professional work than other categories noted, and observation proves to be a more sound basis for studying detail than a questionnaire approach. The second study assesses the competence of 27 new trainee solicitors at interviewing clients through a detailed monitoring of their performance over thirteen tasks using eighteen different techniques and providing thirteen heads of information. Their performance exhibited many of the deficiencies recognised in the literature. The trainees were then randomly allocated to three treatment groups. One group received full training, one received training without audio-visual feedback of first interviews and the third (control) received no training at all. They all then undertook a second interview which was similarly assessed. Training was found significantly to enhance performance over the spectrum of measurement, an audio-visual feedback) especially enhanced behavioral aspects of performance. In the final study, solicitors and trainees ranging widely in experience were videotaped interviewing their clients and similarly assessed. Experience was not found to have- the expected effect of enhancing performance significantly except in some minor respects, but it did increase the feeling of confidence in interviewing ability. In conclusion, suggestions are made for stronger linking of training with experience in the production of new lawyers.

This thesis is concerned with the centrality of the confession as an item of prosecution evidence. It is also concerned with both the structures and strategies that have evolved in the criminal justice system to legitimate the confession and preserve its vitality as evidence probative of guilt. The socio-legal research evaluates the status of records of police interviews within the context of police custodial interrogations of persons suspected of involvement in crime. To this end the thesis examines the extent to which evidence is "constructed"' within a legal framework rather than elicited; how far the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) has affected police-suspect relations in interrogations; the circumstances in which suspects "elect" to cooperate with the police or decline to answer specific questions; and the extent to which records of interrogations can be said to be complete, accurate and reliable. The research comprises a number of different methodologies. The first stage involves a historical and case-based analysis of both the development of the use of confession evidence in criminal cases and of the forms of regulation that have been applied over police access to suspects. The investigation centres upon a structural analysis of the relationship between suspects, the police and the courts and examines the value systems which have conditioned the forms of regulation that have evolved. The next stage of the study involves a comparative analysis of the content and form of police interrogations and of the reporting or recording systems relating thereto in a sample of cases drawn from the period prior to the introduction of the PACE Act and from a sample generated following the implementation of the Act. This aspect of the research builds upon conceptual categories developed by psychologists, sociologists and criminologists. This systematic and comparative examination of the interrogation process of the pre- PACE era and the current PACE era is intended as a contribution to the debate surrounding police interview practices and will help resolve contradictory accounts relating to the police role in the criminal justice process. It is, in addition, also intended as a contribution to questions relating not only to the regulation of police powers over suspects but also to those. concerned with the form, nature and structure of the police suspect dynamic and, finally, to those associated with miscarriages of justice.

This thesis focuses on the privacy interests of those subject to a criminal process. The thesis investigates the extent to which the privacy interests of those subject to such a process are recognised and afforded adequate protection in England and Wales. Over the last thirty years policing has become increasingly proactive and preventive. Advances in technology have given rise to new policing strategies, which emphasise the need to manage ‘risky’ groups and individuals through the collection and retention of disparate pieces of personal information. Whilst there is a significant body of criminological literature documenting this trend, and raising the possibility that these developments could pose a threat to the privacy interests of those subject to such preventive policing measures, criminological theorising alone cannot provide a defensible normative model for assessing the impact of such developments. Moreover, criminal procedure scholarship tends to focus on human rights insofar as they regulate adjudicatory policing measures geared towards the prosecution of suspected offenders. This procedural scholarship does not focus centrally on the wider functions of the police in maintaining order and protecting the public by gathering intelligence on ‘risky’ individuals and groups. This thesis aims to fill this gap in the literature through an assessment of how such policing activities set back privacy related rights. An interdisciplinary method is used, which draws on philosophical literature, European and domestic human rights and criminal procedure jurisprudence, and relevant policing and criminal justice scholarship. The first broad task for the thesis is to develop a normatively defensible model which can identify where privacy interests are set back as part of a criminal process, and articulate why it is important for those tasked with regulating such a process to recognise and appropriately protect these interests. This normative model is then used to assess English law’s response in different contexts to the police use of privacy interfering measures against those subject to the criminal process. It is noted that the European Court of Human Right’s Article 8 jurisprudence has (generally speaking) had a positive impact on English law in this area, but concerns are raised that domestic lawmakers consistently fail to strike a fair balance between the privacy interests of those subject to a criminal process and the legitimate crime prevention goals of the police.

2013 marked ten years since the Sexual Offences Act 2003 was passed. That Act made significant changes to the law of rape which appear now to have made very little difference to either prosecution or conviction rates. This thesis argues that the Act has failed against its own measures because it remains enmeshed within a conceptual framework of sexual indifference in which woman continues to be constructed as man’s (defective) other. This construction both constricts the frame in which women’s sexuality can be thought and distorts the harm of rape for women. It also continues woman’s historic alienation from her own nature and denies her entitlement to a becoming in line with her own sexuate identity. It effaces woman’s specificity leaving her suspended in an ahistorical space in which the unique and gendered meaning of rape for women is also erased. This thesis argues that the law is complicit in its own failure because it is structurally invested, for its own survival and coherence, in the exclusion and erasure of woman’s voice, which represents the possibility of a plural form of being and thinking and is thus a fundamental challenge to the legitimacy of law. Using Luce Irigaray’s critical and constructive frameworks, the thesis seeks to imagine how law might ‘cognise’ sexual difference and thus take the preliminary steps to a juridical environment in which women can more adequately understand and articulate the harm of rape. It argues that the prevention of rape is not just about prohibitive laws that fix the iteration of the sex act and of sexed bodies. It first requires an ethics of subject-subject relations and the recognition of two distinct and different subjects. Only then can we hope to generate a minor jurisprudence capable of providing justice owed to women who are raped.

This thesis examines the complex legal framework for admission to hospital and treatment for mental disorder of adolescents. It identifies areas of uncertainty and makes recommendations on how these might be addressed. It does so by mapping the various legal routes for adolescent psychiatric care, including detention under the Mental Health Act 1983, and examining these through a 'human rights lens' which reflects international and European human rights standards, including the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The basis of this thesis is an investigation of Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) administrative and criminal enforcement files, relating to UK detentions and prosecutions. It would appear that this is the first time that such an analysis has been made. The thesis is divided into four parts of which Part B and C form the heart of the work. These two consider administrative (Part B) and criminal (Part C) enforcement measures and discusses their legal basis. But before these subjects are dealt with in more detail, enforcement personnel and their roles are analysed (Part A), and their role is compared to inspectors of the Health and Safety Executive and the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB). Human rights and their impact on both enforcement process and inspectors of MCA and MAIB are addressed within the context of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 and Regulations issued under the Act. The thesis identifies inconsistencies of UK legislation when compared with European law and apparent lack of clarification within UK law. The analysis of administrative enforcement measures focuses on detentions of merchant ships whereas the discussion of criminal enforcement measures concentrates on the areas which the files suggested were the most affected by investigations and prosecutions, namely groundings, violations of the Collision Regulations and pollution incidents. It becomes clear from the research that detentions by far outweigh prosecutions, that MCA policy supports this approach and that enforcement personnel indicate a preference for such administrative enforcement measures. However, a large number of Detention Notices were found non-compliant with legal requirements. Still only one case was identified, documented and discussed where the MCA was taken to arbitration by the owner affected by a detention. The thesis offers suggestions as to how the work of MCA enforcement personnel can be improved and (Part D) what measures would seem to be appropriate for the lawmakers to take in the future. It is suggested that the approach taken in recent European oil pollution legislation to focus on serious negligence rather than on strict criminal liability could offer a suitable way forward. Throughout this work I have endeavoured to state the law as at 31 October 2008. In a number of cases it has been possible to take account of developments since that date as my viva voce only took place in June 2009. I have made reference to new European and UK pollution legislation (see Chapter 13, fn 1) which came into force or will come into force in the course of 2009. I also used the decision in TS Lines Ltd v. Delphis NV (The TS Singapore), [2009] EWHC B4 (Comm) in Chapter 8.6.2. to help clarify the discussion about the quantum of compensation in an arbitration over a detention. But I did not carry out a detailed analysis of the new legislation and that case. The decision in Club Cruise Entertainment and Travelling Services Europe BV v. The Department For Transport [2008] EWHC 2794 (Comm) of 18 November 2008, however, was fully analysed and relevant aspects found their way into the discussion in the thesis.

This thesis explores the use of equity and its principles in the field of public law. It asks whether the relationship between local authorities and their service users can properly be understood as being a fiduciary relationship. In considering this question the thesis examines the extent to which the relationship is analogous to trusteeship or whether it is some other sui generis category. This requires exploration of core elements of trust and loyalty and analysis, within a local government context of the debate as to whether fiduciary duties are confined to having a proscriptive role or whether, as some advocate they have a wider prescriptive function. The relationship between local authorities and their service users is not considered to be a fiduciary relationship within the traditional class of relationships so classified. Notwithstanding, there are instances within that relationship where the characteristics resemble in part application of a sui generis label. For example, in the realm of local authorities and their interaction with the elderly, child care and youth counselling services it is possible to apply a quasi - trusteeship role. This categorisation cannot however be extended to the majority of interactions between local authorities and their service users which usually fall within a contract or tortious setting. The main reason in not being able to identify the relationship between local authorities and their service users as fully fiduciary is the inability to point to a central core of loyalty between the parties which is so necessary for a finding of the existence of a fiduciary relationship. The loyalty inhibitor is the polycentric essence of much of local authority decision making, which is made in a very diverse community group often with different complex needs and aspirations all clambering for attention. Further, as local authorities are public bodies they must accommodate the ‘public interest’ in any decision making process and outcome. These factors combine to make a very different decision making environment than the way fiduciary obligations can be exercised in private law and makes the hurdles higher for an exercise of translation to the public law sphere. The purpose of this analysis is to explore whether the roving commission of equity has any application to the public law field. Has equity died and shrivelled, or does equity still have the ability to flourish and accommodate new situations and changes in social morals and norms, ‘yet maintain its core values and norms, without which no society can survive, let alone flourish.’? Notwithstanding, these hurdles this author considers that equity still has a role to play in public law, none more so than in the day to day decision making of local authorities as well as in judicial review proceedings. Equity can bring a contextual approach so necessary when substantive review is applied. Equity has proved to be a robust flexible adaptable tool, even in a complex modern environment. For example, the remedies it has fashioned of injunctions, declaratory relief and freezing orders to mention a few , as well as aiding the common law in its application of trust principles to a deserted wife’s equity, where the title was in one party’s sole name. This author espouses a principle of stewardship which can be applied as an additional substantive review tool in the judicial tool box, along with Wednesbury and proportionality. Structuring substantive review is a major current debate in public law both judicially and academically: there is no valid reason why ethical principles such as stewardship-of person, place, property and purpose should not be a valid contributory player.