Law in Action

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

The Law Show

Documentaries

Factual: Crime & Justice

Factual: Politics

Conversation about the laws making headlines, and the laws that shape everyday life.

The Law Show is your guide to the law and the legal decisions that have a bearing on everyone in the UK.

Weekly conversation that will give you an in-depth understanding of the law stories making news and the legal decisions that could have a bearing on everyone in the UK. Whether it's unpicking a landmark legal ruling, explaining how laws are made or seeking clarity for you on a legal issue, The Law Show will be your guide.

BBC Radio 4 FM

The Law Show: Covid penalties

Covid penalties

BBC Radio 4 - The Law Show, Covid penalties

Unfair Covid fines, online justice, diversity in the profession, and private prosecutions.

What to do about unfair Covid-19 fines; civil justice is moving online; the Law Society's first president of colour, and private criminal prosecutions. With Joshua Rozenberg.

Thousands of people have received fixed penalty notices for breaching Covid-19 restrictions, even though no offence had actually been committed in their cases. Yet there is no appeals procedure, and not paying the fines risks a criminal record. So what should happen with them? 

Sir Geoffrey Vos, the master of the rolls and head of civil justice, reveals how new online systems are increasingly doing away with the need to go to court. 
 
The legal profession used to be dominated by middle-aged, middle-class, white men, but that has been changing, and this year I. Stephanie Boyce became the first person of colour to be elected president of the Law Society, the professional body for solicitors in England and Wales. What are her priorities for her tenure? 

The recent quashing of the convictions for theft and false accounting of 39 sub-postmasters after Britain's biggest miscarriage of justice has laid open the world of private criminal prosecutions. It was not the Crown Prosecution Service that took the sub-postmasters to court, but the Post Office itself. Should private prosecutions now be regulated?
 
Presenter: Joshua Rozenberg
Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Researcher: Diane Richardson

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Law Show

Covid penalties

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4