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Law
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two week Professional Skills Course that will follow in the summer.
Training for the future
Currently there are 37 Gibraltar-sponsored students of law at various stages of UK University training, and those who return to Gibraltar will either join one of 31 local practices or work in-house for companies or government.
However, continuous professional development (CPD) for existing lawyers occurs only on an ad hoc basis: Azopardi would like to see it become compulsory, a view supported by government. Minister Licudi reveals: “I used to do CPD, because I was not only called to the Bar in Gibraltar and the UK and unusually I had a practicing certificate there as well, so I was required to keep up with knowledge through CPD – its fundamental.”
Gibraltar’s modernised and extended law courts costing £11m opened in 2012, but ‘administrative issues’, such as backlogs in provision of dates for hearings, caused months of delays, and then law firms frequently waited months for court
appearances. The government subsequently imposed hearing date time limits of five days for 90% of applications and for cases to be heard as soon as possible. Licudi says the system sometimes works too well; “we now even face situations where dates are given that are too soon for lawyers.”
There used to be “a significant delay – years later in some cases – in reporting of cases and judgments and, because we rely on Common Law and judicial precedent, it is so important for the profession to know what judges are deciding.” Judgments now are made available on the Court website shortly after cases end.
Recently a judge criticised prosecution systems as “a shambles” when court papers were mislaid or not available. Licudi is hoping to prevent repeat situations with the launch before summer of a £1.4m criminal justice integrated IT system that provides for data input from all elements of the criminal justice system, police, lawyers, judges, prison authorities and customs staff. “It will reduce the need for paper shuffling: taking physical bundles of documents to court may well be a thing of the past”, Licudi muses.
held a similar role in the Cayman Islands, comments: “Whilst I am not sure that client compensation schemes work in small jurisdictions, an effective independent
arbitration system or ombuds- man scheme may be appropriate for individuals to be able to get any wrongdoings by law firms put right in a speedy and cost effective way – it’s what people effectively expect to have in 2016.”
The Bar has also been supportive of compulsory train- ing for lawyers specifically in Gibraltar law, which is based on Common Law and similar to English Law, but frequently is subtly different. A new
Certificate in Gibraltar Law is required by all newly qualified lawyers before they can be called to the Gibraltar Bar and the part-time, one-year course at Gibraltar University is being taken up by the first 21 students on law firm contracts of at least a year, as well as a
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