Month: May 2006

Edinburgh University marked the tercentenary of the establishment of its first chair in Law – the Chair of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations – with a special graduation ceremony in the university’s McEwan Hall on Saturday 10 February 2007 (the actual anniversary being 11 February).  Honorary LLDs were conferred upon Mary McAleese, President of Ireland, Lord Gill, the Lord Justice Clerk (Charles Areskine, first holder of the Public Law Chair, later became Lord Justice Clerk), and Justice Albie Sachs, of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.  Speeches were made by Professor Sir Neil MacCormick, current holder of the Chair, and the University Principal, Timothy O’Shea, while the graduates were laureated by, respectively, Professor Vicki Bruce, Professor Kenneth Reid and Professor Hector MacQueen.  There was a large attendance of the good, the great and other friends of the Law School.  Photographs of the great occasion available here –

 

http://www.registry.ed.ac.uk/graduations/Grad_Photos/Grad_photos_home.htm (click on the link for Saturday 10 February)

 

– to be followed by podcasts etc available soon, one trusts, on the Law School’s Tercentenary website –

 

http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/tercentenary/

 

 

Giovanni Mola, a 38-year old man from Edinburgh, became the second person in Scotland to be convicted of the crime of knowingly infecting a sexual partner with HIV and Hepatitis C when found guilty of the offence by a majority of the jury in the High Court of Justiciary at Glasgow on 7 February 2007.  The previous conviction, that of Stephen Kelly, took place in 2001 (see No 99).  Mola will be sentenced on 7 March.

Our uncertainty about the current whereabouts of the Naked Rambler was ended by the information that he remains in Saughton prison in Edinburgh.  However appeals against some of his convictions for contempt of court are due to be heard by the Court of Criminal Appeal on 7 February 2007 (see Criminal Appeal Court Rolls online – http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/webRolls/index.aspx – and search on Gough”).

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The Scotsman for 3 February 2007 reports that a Glasgow seafood grill and cocktail bar called Hemingway’s, opened in June 2006 (and recommended by sources close to Scots Law News), has been forced to change its name after threats of legal action from the estate of the late novelist Ernest Hemingway, who objected to representations in the bar’s promotional material linking it with the great man.  The bar was given the option of taking a licence at a price of £12,500 for past use and £5,000 per annum for the future, but has decided instead to rebrand itself as Café Noir.