2021i11, Monday: reluctance? Or refusal?
Vaccination - mandatory or not? Wise words from the Family Division. And the bell tolls for mainstream specialist legal journalism.
Thing I wrote: I was going to do a short thing about whether employers could require staff to get Covid vaccinations. But it turned out longer than I anticipated, so it’s a separate piece here. tl;dr: I don’t think so, not lawfully; except for care homes and healthcare, where the health and safety picture is very different. And if someone’s imbibed the conspiracy theories and is trying to stop other staff from getting vaccinated - well, that’s a whole ‘nother story, with more room for an employer to take a firmer line.
Short thought: Applause to the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane. His latest message (see paras 11-16) makes crystal clear why court hours - normally from 10 to 4.30 - are no more “part time” than are teachers’ hours, and why it’s simply not right or sustainable to make early or late listings a matter of course. No reason why what he says shouldn’t apply elsewhere.
Someone is right on the internet: David Allen Green does a fantastic job of public comms about the law. Increasingly, he and his ilk are on their own, though, as specialist legal correspondents in the press disappear. I remember, back in my reporter days, sitting round a table in the Law Offices with Joshua Rozenberg (then the Telegraph’s legal correspondent), elegantly roasting the then-AG about the just-published Fraud Review. He was, and is, a marvel. But he’s no longer a staffer. And with the exception of the Times and FT, there aren’t any left.
Sure, as I mentioned last week when talking about RSS readers, the internet is full of superb legal writers, from ol’ SB to Joshua himself. But they’re mostly read by us specialists. At a time when the rule of law is under assault - and it is - people with a popular platform who can explain why spin about legal aid, or Tribunal fees, or sentencing, or judicial review, is plain wrong are more important than ever.
And there’s barely any of them left.
(For a somewhat more optimistic take, Joshua’s own view is worth reading. He notes Dom Casciani has now added Legal to his Home Affairs brief. Dom’s really good. But the jobs aren’t the same. And that’s an awfully big beat.)
