Mary-rachel McCabe

The Coronavirus Bill was introduced to the House of Commons on Thursday 19 March and had its first reading on the same day. On Monday 23 March, the 322-page Bill will go through its second and, it is likely, third reading. It is expected to gain Royal Assent by Wednesday or Thursday this week (25 or 26 March). The Act is set to expire two years after the date on which it is passed. This is subject to a power to alter the expiry date to make it earlier or up to six months later (clause 76).

Hundreds of lawyers, trade unionists and campaigners gathered outside Parliament on Monday afternoon in defence of the legacy of Magna Carta and to highlight the hypocrisy of the government’s three-day event to mark the 800th anniversary of the historic document, the Global Law Summit.

‘I remember the night before I got out, looking up at the sky through the bars at Brixton prison and crying,’ says Gerry Conlon, as he sips a Diet Coke in a quiet pub in Belfast’s city centre. ‘Not crying with joy, but crying with anticipation of what lay ahead of me…because this had become my home.’ Gerry Conlon is talking to Mary-Rachel McCabe. Gerry Conlon was released from prison on 19th October 1989 after serving 15 years as an innocent man.