Marcel Berlins

Profile: Full name: Marcel Berlins Area of interest: The Law Journals/Organisation: The Guardian Email: mberlins@aol.com Personal website: Website: Guardian.co / Marcel Berlins Blog: Comment is free... Representation: Networks:

Biography: About: Education: Trained as a lawyer Career: Created and edited The Law Magazine; The Times: legal correspondent and leader writer; The Guardian: legal writer and columnist, 1988/2010 Current position/role: Legal writer and columnist also writes/has written for: reviews crime fiction for The Times Other roles/Main role: Other activities: Teaches media law at City University, London Viewpoints/Insight: Puzzling,very puzzling... Fortune City, (Reproduced from the Radio Times) Broadcast media: Video: For London Weekend Television he created the first television drama-documentary to feature real lawyers and judges doing their jobs Presented BBC Radio 4's Law in Action programme, 1988/2004 Controversy/Criticism: Awards/Honours: Scoops: Other: Is a French citizen by birth and voted in the 2007 French presidential election

Books & Debate: File:The law machine Marcel Berlins.jpg Caught in the act: children, society and the law OCLC 1255195 , with Geoffrey Wansell, 1974 Ramesh Maharaj, barrister behind bars OCLC 12695440 , 1979 Living together OCLC 16554368 , with Clare Dyer, 1982 You and the law OCLC 12505377 , with the Consumers Association, 1985 The Law and you OCLC 59145899 , 1987 The law machine OCLC 60106322 , with Clare Dyer, 1994 Latest work: Speaking/Appearances: Bath Literature Festival 2008: Doreen Lawrence & Kester Aspden with Marcel Berlins - Two authors discuss race and justice, past and present with Marcel Berlins, 1st March 2008 Debate:

The Guardian: Column name: Remit/Info: The Law and Society: legal system, criminal justice, judiciary, constitution Section: Home pages Role: Columnist Pen-name: Email: marcel.berlins@guardian.co.uk Website: Guardian.co / Writ large Commissioning editor: Day published: Monday Regularity: Weekly Column format: Average length: 500 words

Articles: Things can only get better for Straw's libel reform plans - Government proposals to overhaul libel system show problems of allowing freedom of expression while protecting individuals - 29th March 2010 Venables: age of criminal responsibility in the spotlight - Bulger killer's recall to jail may not provide best platform for exploring how society should treat young offenders - 15th March 2010 US genocide resolution is an ignorant stunt - Definitions of genocide are difficult but one thing is clear: the US Congress has no business ruling on the Armenian claim - 8th March 2010 Why the judges' bench is still a white male zone - The judiciary remains short of women and ethnic minority members but prejudice is not to blame – the problem is in finding enough good candidates - 1st March 2010 Juries are fair, but newspapers are not - Media coverage of report on juries ignored the document's main point and mangled its other findings - 22nd February 2010 The case for the rule of law - Why a new book about Britain's greatest constitutional riddle should be compulsory reading for MPs – and everyone else - 15th February 2010 John Terry gagging order defeat does not mean the end of superinjunctions - Celebrities who try to stop newspapers revealing their affairs still have a chance of getting injunctions on privacy grounds - 1st February 2010 Edlington two have not got off lightly - The problem with indeterminate sentences, such as those in the Doncaster torture case, is that it is the minimum figure that sticks in people's minds - 25th January 2010 Judge's proposals on costs strike a blow for justice – and only the lawyers lose - Lord Justice Rupert Jackson favours the 'interests of the public' over the professionals in litigation - 18th January 2010 Trial by jury: is an ancient right being diluted to save money? - Four accused of robbery to be tried by judge without jury - 11th January 2010 New year, same old threats to legal system - What will 2010 offer the legal system? Not much that's new, whoever wins the election, and a great deal that's depressing - 4th January 2010 The Saville report: late, costly – and unnecessary, too? - The government has first to study and consider it – it's rumoured to be 5,000 pages long – before releasing it to us - 21st December 2009 A vicious, xenophobic attack on Italian justice - Much of the US reaction to the conviction of Amanda Knox has been a disgrace - 14th December 2009 Loss of court reporters is a blow to open justice - Jack Straw's plan to put the results of criminal trials on the internet is to be welcomed, but can not replace the court reporting of yesteryear - 7th December 2009 Knock it on the head, BBC. Judges don't use gavels - Once again, a television drama portrays a courtroom incorrectly - 23rd November 2009 Cautionary tale of spot fines gone awry - Cautions may reduce the burden on courts, police time and cost less money – but downgrading serious crime cannot be justified - 16th November 2009 Beware of the barrister: not a happy beast - I can no longer bear to listen to the litany of complaints that I know will emerge from their fevered lips - 9th November 2009 Parole board revamp would be a risky business - The future of parole is not high on the government's list of priorities, but it deserves attention - 2nd November 2009 A trial of words for the computer generation - Finding a reliable way of feeding evidence to juries by way of computers may need a fundamental reassessment of our trial system - 26th October 2009 Naming and shaming carries a heavy price - Justice secretary Jack Straw's new adventure into naming and shaming in family courts could make things worse - 18th October 2009 A reluctance to court celebrity - A new survey of the number of the times legal figures featured in the national and regional press in the last 12 months makes for interesting reading - 5th October 2009 Our new supreme court is a judge short – but far from underpowered - The law lords' move outside parliament could mean braver and more combative decisions - 28th September 2009 Over the top on Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's dossier - Scotland's chief law officer was wrong to criticise the efforts by Megrahi to challenge his conviction - 21st September 2009 A free pardon for Michael Shields, but at what cost? - No country would want to return a prisoner if it believed that his government would find a way of negating his conviction and setting him free - 14th September 2009 Naming Edlington pair would benefit no one - Lifting reporting restrictions that prevent the media from naming the two children would only put their lives at risk - 7th September 2009 Compassion, conviction and lingering doubt - For many years, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's case has induced unease in the legal world - 31st August 2009 Calling a lawyer's client a customer is plainly wrong - Forcing lawyers to have customers instead of clients puts them on a par with supermarkets - 27th July 2009 Judge rocks the boat over raft of hasty laws - Trigger-happy government should slow down and think more when it comes to criminal justice - 20th July 2009 Must modern barristers be so very boring? - These days they address a jury as if they were accountants explaining a balance sheet - 13th July 2009 Begging Jack Straw's lack of pardons - Justice secretary comes across as hard-hearted and cynical by keeping Ronnie Biggs and Michael Shields in prison - 6th July 2009 Another moral panic, another rushed bill - Hastily drawn, ill-thought out legislation created in panic rarely works - 29th June 2009 Trial by jury? Not in these two cases - The decision seems to go against a basic principle of English justice. But should we be worried? - 22nd June 2009 Why justice sometimes has to get personal - A fascinating and honest account by Albie Sachs gives us a rare insight into how top judges make their decisions - 15th June 2009 Probation officers deserve better, Mr Straw - By starving the probation service of the funding needed to do its job, how much is the government responsible? - 8th June 2009 No quick fix for justice - The concern about virtual courts is that they will persuade innocent people charged with a crime to make a hasty plea of guilt - 1st June 2009 Is it time to open the door on jury rooms? - There can be no harm in allowing unidentified jurors to recount past experiences in trials - 25th May 2009 Dealing with the dichotomy of data stockpiling - The debate on how to control the accumulation of data is 10 years behind the technology gathering it - 18th May 2009 Four top judges, three low profiles - The retirement of David Souter, a US supreme court judge, generated more discussion in the UK press than the replacement of three law lords - 11th May 2009 U-turn on supersized prisons is not so titanic - The government is still fully committed to its counterproductive policy of providing more prisons in which to pack thousands more prisoners - 27th April 2009 Little change for media in family courts - The need to retain and enforce the anonymity of children in proceedings has, it seems, triumphed - 20th April 2009 I am dreading the possibility that two young children will be forced to undergo a public trial - It is impossible not to have in mind the trial of the killers of James Bulger, who were both 10 at the time of the crime - 8th April 2009 Our rights need better judges in their defence - Reforms are needed in Strasbourg, but it is not an institution which should be discarded - 6th April 2009 It is disgraceful that prisoners are still denied the vote. So why is the government still hesitating? - Conferring on most inmates the right to participate in our electoral system would be beneficial to them and to society as a whole - 1st April 2009 Judicial misgivings, trivial and not - the Council of Circuit Judges has expressed views on the way the courts impose sentences - 30th March 2009 Matters of life or death are a trial for judges - The judges have made it clear that the 'right to life' enshrined in our human rights legislation cannot be an absolute - 23rd March 2009 Diversity in the judiciary: still a case to answer - It is already apparent that the diversity being sought in the legal profession is very slow in coming - 16th March 2009 Why Simenon's plot device had to go - To the French detective novel the juge d'instruction is essential. But the job is to be abolished - 9th March 2009 Our liberties need more than a bill of rights - I do not believe that Britain needs a new formal instrument. We have enough legislative tools - 2nd March 2009 Cruel blow for parents - Nicola and Mark Webster were wrongly deprived of their three children and now the court of appeal has ruled they can't get them back - 16th February 2009 A revolution at the top - Eight months from now, 12 law lords will be turned into justices of the new United Kingdom supreme court - 9th February 2009 Whatever happened to trials on TV? - A strange thing happened to the once lively debate on the televising of trials in the courtrooms of England and Wales. It suddenly died - 2nd February 2009 Wikipedia is unreliable in its current form. So why do its users resist even modest changes? - It is hardly a secret that the hasty reporting of a current event is the enemy of context and accuracy - 28th January 2009 Sports law is now big game - Sport and the law used to be strangers, today they are intimate friends - 19th January 2009 Why jobs on the bench are losing their lustre - It's a strange system of picking judges we have in England and Wales - 12th January 2009 Let's stop fighting over the figures in 2009 - The way crime statistics are presented by politicians is calculated to befuddle - 5th January 2009 Fan's fate is agonising dilemma for Straw - I do not know whether or not Michael Shields was guilty of the crime for which he was convicted by a Bulgarian court in 2005. But I am sure that should the justice secretary, Jack Straw, grant him a pardon, the consequences for many prisoners currently in foreign jails could be severe - 22nd December 2008 Rights and responsibilities bill is all wrong - It is difficult to know what to make of Jack Straw at the moment - 15th December 2008 Let's end the lottery in the lords - Have the Chagos Islanders been denied their right to return home by the vagaries and haphazardness of the voting system of our highest court? - 24th November 2008 A dilemma more moral than legal - Keeping a dying man in jail pending appeal is unnecessary on the part of the Scottish court of criminal appeal - 17th November 2008 Jury's out on the net generation - Can the jury system survive the internet? - 10th November 2008 A Kafkaesque excuse for ignorance of the law - You can only get to know the law if there's somewhere you can ascertain what it is - 3rd November 2008 Unanswered questions on sharia - English courts should not just rubber-stamp sharia rulings. But how can they inquire into every consent form to ensure it complies with English legal tenets? - 27th November 2008 Another blow to justice in anti-terror bill - Clause 77 would give the home secretary the power to hold an inquest without a jury - 13th October 2008 UN right to chastise us - Does the law really treat children in Britain as badly as the United Nations seems to believe? - 6th October 2008 One of Labour's most disgraceful, if low-profile, failures - Once, we had a proud legal aid system, providing legal help to people with a worthy case - 29th September 2008 Torture on death row - So they finally killed Jack Alderman after all. More than 33 years after his conviction - 22nd September 2008 Judges and equality: it gets worse - 15th September 2008 Fair play in court, and a personal experience - In Britain we do not approve of criminal trials which take place in the absence of the accused - 8th September 2008 Sad farewell and a welcome arrival - This is the last week of the legal year, which brings one sad departure and an exciting arrival to come - 28th July 2008 Don't shoot that burglar - Many people hoping for an unrestricted green light to beat up or shoot their burglars or robbers, even unto death, will be disappointed - 21st July 2008 The burdens of being lord chief justice - In a blaze of hardly any publicity, Sir Igor Judge has been announced the next lord chief justice of England and Wales - 14th July 2008 Sense and sentencing - The ill-thought-out laws on sentencing under Labour have resulted in mass confusion - 7th July 2008 TV's legal fictions don't do the profession justice - 30th June 2008 Can we have fair trials and shield witnesses? - 23rd June 2008 UK shame and US pride - The War on Terror in the UK and the US - 16th June 2008 Bringing justice to the provinces - at a price - It is absurd that places an hour or less from London continue to shell out for judges' lodgings - 9th June 2008 Symbolic and illogical - The government has fixed upon 42 as the number of days a suspect should spend in detention before trial - 2nd June 2008 Pay gap is all too black and white - If an investigation is being carried out to explain women solicitors' inferior pay, should the Law Society not do the same for the even more disadvantaged lawyers from ethnic minorities? - 26th May 2008 Judicial diversity goes into reverse -Expectations that the new system of appointing judges would lead to a more diverse judiciary have so far not been fulfilled - 19th May 2008 Happy birthday for the Ministry of Justice - 12th May 2008 Bad or mad? The public usually wants a full trial - The Josef Fritzl case - 5th May 2008 A mental block in policy - The majority of our prisoners suffer from various disadvantages - 28th April 2008 Haggling-style plea bargaining is not for us - 7th April 2008 Straw's penal vision - and a reality - 31st March 2008 Emotions run high over right-to-die case - 24th March 2008 Court TV? Let's forget it - 17th March 2008 Part-time judges can now retire at 70 but is there a need for a fixed limit? - 3rd March 2008 Bidding farewell to to some much-loved family court language - 25th February 2008 Our untidy constitution serves Britain well - 18th February 2008 Publicity-mad Sarkozy leads fight for privacy - 4th February 2008 All equal under the law - 28th January 2008 Who will be the first president of the new supreme court? - 21st January 2008 Time to defend the rule of law - ...on Clause 42 of the criminal justice bill - 14th January 2008 Time for judges to drop these absurd forms of address - 7th January 2008 Brown shows true colours in grim year for liberties - 31st December 2007 On legal aid, a judge bites back - 17th December 2007 Jack Straw calls his planned new jailhouses "Titan" prisons. I'm not sure the adjective is appropriate - 10th December 2007 No easy answer to reform of rape law - 3rd December 2007 Brown's baffling obsession with 28 days - 26th November 2007 Intifada image tested in France - 19th November 2007 BBC's cost-cutters guilty of rough justice - 12th November 2007 Unnamed royal is no secret on the web - 5th November 2007 The way judges are appointed is here to stay - 29th October 2007

The Guardian: Column name: Remit/Info: Law, Society, Culture: reflections on legislation, value systems and received knowledge in the context of modern society - the columns always closes with a paragraph about Marcel's cultural activities during the week Section: G2 features pages Role: Columnist Pen-name: Email: marcel.berlins@guardian.co.uk Website: Guardian.co / Marcel Berlins Commissioning editor: Day published: Wednesday Regularity: Weekly Column format: Average length: 950 words

Articles: Jack Straw drags feet over prisoners' right to vote - Government fails to act on European court ruling that Britain's ban was a breach of human rights - 30th November 2009 The fabric of our democracy has not been torn - it merely has a few stains on it, and they are removable - It is understandable that the expenses scandal has turned the nation into a collection of doubters and cynics. But the response has been exaggerated - 3rd June 2009 I'm not saying that a celebrity cannot be a good MP, but fame alone is not a good enough credential - If I can think of one thing worse than a parliament consisting largely of second-raters, it's a parliament full of celebrities - 27th May 2009 Cheating has always been around in schools and universities - but the internet is making it far worse - Virtually everywhere in the world plagiarism by students is on the increase, with information being directly lifted from Wikipedia or Google - 20th May 2009 These people were at the museum not to admire the art, but to take snaps to prove they were there - Anyone wanting to snap an exhibit ought to be forced to look at it first for at least a minute - or be fined - 13th May 2009 Plane Stupid campaigners shouldn't whinge about police infiltration - it's a sign of their success - I am not in the least surprised by the police's tactics but I am surprised at the surprise of others that the police should be doing such things - 29th April 2009 Piped music in libraries may encourage young people in, but it risks forcing older readers out - Libraries are particularly important to people at times of financial stress. Readers who used to buy books turn to borrowing them - 22nd April 2009 How the French shrugged off their malaise - and the British gallantly picked it up for them - I have seen whole French news bulletins go by without a single bleak item about financial ruin - 15th April 2009 I am dreading the possibility that two young children will be forced to undergo a public trial - It is impossible not to have in mind the trial of the killers of James Bulger, who were both 10 at the time of the crime - 8th April 2009 Get rid of tax havens, by all means. But it is disingenuous of Brown to claim they're relevant to our current crisis - They will reveal as little as they can get away with - and they have lots of very clever lawyers to make sure that little means very little - 25th March 2009 It's no mystery why lawyers are happy to defend men the public regard as monsters. It's called a fair trial - Josef Fritzl's lawyer has received death threats since it became known he was to represent him - 18th March 2009 The government's plan to allow people to comment on public services online is lazy and ill-considered - Many people's opinions will be based not on careful consideration of their experiences, but on ignorance - 11th March 2009 Age discrimination laws could backfire on us if they end up keeping young people out of work - Our whole attitude to age and employment and their intimate relationship with pensions is in a confused mess - 4th March 2009 Obama's ambassador to the UK might throw a good party, but the role has lost all its stature - The thing about becoming an American ambassador is that no previous experience - of anything - is necessary - 25th February 2009 The return of gangsters to Marseille has given me a reluctant feeling of pride and nostalgia - The city where I was born used to be known for gangster efficiency, innovation and a certain elegance - 18th February 2009 Not breaking rules over expenses and bonuses is all very well. But what about decency and morality? - Perpetrators of the 'I'm allowed to, therefore I'll do it' philosophy often do not seem to understand why their conduct has drawn criticism - 11th February 2009 The snow may be lovely, but what's with this blizzard of totally meaningless statistics? - Every time some unexpected or unusual event disrupts the smooth running of our lives, there is always someone turning up on television or quoted in a newspaper telling us how much the chaos has cost the country - 4th February 2009 The snow may be lovely, but what's with this blizzard of totally meaningless statistics? - 4th February 2009 Newton and Einstein may have been autistic. But is their genius an argument against a screening test? - 14th January 2009 So, teachers are boring. But is that the real reason pupils leave school unable to add or subtract? - I cannot believe that British children have a DNA preventing them from being competent with figures - 7th January 2009 All that the recent high-profile cases prove is that the law regarding assisted suicide is farcical - It is ludicrous that every case of assisted suicide will have to be looked at individually only after the death has taken place - 17th December 2008 I fear my stay in hospital has changed my tastes for ever. I'm hooked on Strictly, X and I'm a Celeb - I even rush home to watch my new favourite, Murder She Wrote - 10th December 2008 The fuss over the Damian Green affair has been excessive. Parliamentary democracy is not at risk - I fear that this relatively unserious incident will be used to rearrange the relationship between police, politicians and government. This would be damaging - 3rd December 2008 A list of the best 100 films, without a single British movie - is there an anglophobic conspiracy? - How can we get high up on all these lists unless British judges play the game? - 26th November 2008 A well-meaning Barnado's poll that reveals adults' fear of children could do more harm than good - I fear that the words feral and vermin will stick, while the sentence 'Most children are good' will be forgotten - 19th November 2008 Ban happy hour by all means. But let's not pretend that will stop young people drinking too much - Supermarkets are now the official villains of Britain's mass bacchanalia - 12th November 2008 Will parliament help people like Debbie Purdy die with dignity in the company of those they love? - It is far more difficult for the criminal justice system to look the other way if the situation in question is in the public eye - 5th November 2008 If 16-year-olds cannot buy cigarettes, surely they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a polling booth - Ministers should realise that teenagers do not possess the attributes to be able to put an X on a ballot form. They have not absorbed enough of the world - 29th October 2008 Rwanda's decision to ditch French for English is yet another blow for the most wonderful language - It gives me no pleasure, but the trend is inevitable. Even when the world goes astray, as now, the discussions of its chaos are carried out in English - 15th October 2008 Should we worry about the endangerment of all species? Pandas and tigers for sure, but armadillos? - 8th October 2008 Is it such a good idea to be a good Samaritan? Better perhaps to cross the road and live to tell the tale ... - 1st October 2008 The web encourages lies and deceit. It's impossible to know who lurks behind a funny nickname - 24th September 2008 Sarah's Law will spread suspicion and hurt among friends and neighbours, and children will suffer - How can a mother, told that her new boyfriend is a risk to her child, be expected to keep it a permanent secret from those close to her? - 17th September 2008 Can anyone as famous as OJ Simpson, surely known to every member of the jury, ever get a fair trial? - According to polls, more than half of Americans today still believe that Simpson was wrongly acquitted - 10th September 2008 A pensioner who uses the wrong recycling bin is fined more than a violent thug. Call that justice? - 3rd September 2008 The National Theatre is trying to attract younger audiences with £5 tickets. Will it work? I'm not sure - 27th August 2008 While I hope new knife-crime measures will work, stopping and searching won't solve the problem - A cashier at Croydon's BHS asked a 15-year-old boy, 'You're not going to kill someone are you?' then sold him a folding handsaw - 20th August 2008 Boxing has produced more top-class fiction and films than any other sport, and I defy anyone to differ - 13th August 2008 The idea of imposing an indiscriminate curfew on kids is grotesque - 'I have a distasteful vision of the police riding around the streets of English towns and cities rounding up youngsters' - 16th July 2008 Being anti-smoking is fine, but the BMA's proposal to censor 'pro-smoking' films is ludicrous - 9th July 2008 Only when politicians have regained the trust of the people will they be rewarded with more voters - 2nd July 2008 Chinese South Africans have won the right to be classified as 'black' - how ironic - 25th June 2008 Whether the West End is too in thrall to celebrity or just too expensive, it's bad news for the theatre - 18th June 2008 Why has English Heritage denied Wallis Simpson a blue plaque on the basis of wild rumours about her love life? - 11th June 2008 A French judge annulled a marriage because the wife lied about her virginity. Could it happen here? - 4th June 2008 There is simply no evidence that naming and shaming the parents of troublemakers would solve anything - 28th May 2008 Let's write our language as we speak it. Then at least our children will be able to spell properly - Instead of blaming teachers, syllabuses and text messaging, let's put the blame where it really belongs - 21st May 2008 Foreigners will no longer pick our fruit and veg for a pittance. Is this the end of seasonal, local produce? - 14th May 2008 Junior courts are a bad idea - having the maturity to make decisions is not child's play - 7th May 2008 We like to tell the world how fair our elections are. But the shameful truth is out: postal voting is a farce - 30th April 2008 A news junkie on holiday - 23rd April2008 The proposed mile-high skyscraper is a terrible idea: a gigantic folly pandering to a super-rich man's ego - 2nd April 2008 For Brown to boycott the Olympics would be hypocrisy when British business is busy wooing China - 26th March 2008 Heather Mills-McCartney might just have performed an important public service - 19th March 2008 Why is Derek Conway still in Parliament? Voters should be able to kick out dodgy MPs in mid-term - 12th March 2008 ...on the Tories' green paper "Prisons with a Purpose" - 5th March 2008 One restaurant has given in to intimidation and changed its menu. How many more will follow? - 27th February 2008 Importing foreign produce may damage the planet, but it also feeds families. Which is more important? - 20th February 2008 Why no outcry over Cameron's support for lying parents - 30th January 2008 ...on the UN security council - 23rd January 2008 The burning question is not exactly what our MPs get paid, but how that figure is determined - 16th January 2008 Obama and the death penalty - 9th January 2008 Will the next US president raise their country's spirits the way Sarkozy has in France? I doubt it - 2nd January 2008 Men accused of rape are being wrongly acquitted - thanks to jurors who think like John Redwood - 19th December 2008 Sarkozy may sacrifice human rights for commerce, and let's not kid ourselves that we're any different - 12th December 2007 The last lines to a classic story I adore were not written by it's author - I feel betrayed...I think - 5th December 2007 It helped us win two world wars, but now the noble racing pigeon is in officialdom's firing line - 28th November 2007 A history of murder does not enhance a property's value - but should tenants be compensated? - 21st November 2007 Wether the teaching comes from home or school, children of a certain age are unreceptive to advice from adults - 14th November 2008 The sentence must fit the crime, but should judges start granting time off for poor prison conditions? - 7th November 2007 Thanks to the list-makers, future generations will now believe that Brian Eno is a musical genius - 31st October 2007 Russian museums are taking a risk in lending us their paintings. Let's hope they get them back - 24th October 2007

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