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Official SolicitorOfficial Solicitor is a term which relates to two different and relatively old offices of British government. It was an office that represented the Crown, which is an institution that stands in place of a written constitution. The monarch is the representative of the Crown as head of state and the Official Solicitor was originally the legal representative of the Church by which all law was enforced. When the laws of England became divided between the spiritual (Church of England) and the temporal (secular) Parliament, the result was a division in the office of Official Solicitor. Today both offices still exist, yet they no longer retain the powers that they once held. Background and history Very little information is currently available concerning the history of the office of Official Solicitor and this is due to the fact the duties of this office have been dramatically revised within very recent years. 1870s The present office of Official Solicitor to the Supreme Court of Judicature was created by an Order of the Lord Chancellor made on the November 6 1875 with the approval of the Presidents of the newly constituted divisions of the High Court, and of the Treasury. 1970s In the 1970s the office of Official Solicitor (temporal) was used to break a legal stalemate between the British Trades Union Congress and the government of Prime Minister Edward Heath. At that time the Official Solicitor was able to draw upon ancient powers that nearly everyone had forgotten about, and by authority of the Office of Official Solicitor alone, cause the release from prison of strikers known as the Pentonville Seven. This action resolved a major constitutional and political crisis at the time. The crisis took place in July 1972. That is when trades union action brought the British nation to a standstill and forced the government of the day into a corner. The crisis concerned five imprisoned shop stewards who became known as the Pentonville 5 and the person who solved this crisis was the Official Solicitor. The five docker shop stewards were sent to Pentonville Prison by the National Industrial Relations Court (NIRC) on a charge of contempt during the Conservative Party Government of Prime Minister Edward Heath. Following their arrest a rolling series of strikes began to cause work stoppages until there was virtually an unofficial national strike. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) then called for an official national strike demanding the release of the 5 shop stewards. As a result of this appeal thousands of striking workers marched through North London to Pentonville Prison. The crisis came to a head and total disaster was averted when the previously unknown Official Solicitor went in person to the prison and on his orders had the 5 shop stewards released. The government was powerless to do this without giving up the rule of law for mob rule. 1980s In the 1980s the office of Official Solicitor was called upon by the Secretary of State for the Department of Trade and Industry after receiving the last in a chain of delegated overtures which had originated in the United States of America. This time the issue was pirate radio broadcasting. On board a ship called Ross Revenge anchored in the North Sea were three radio stations. One of them was quite famous and known as Radio Caroline. Another station broadcast in the Dutch language to Holland and both were on different AM frequencies. A third station was also in English but it broadcast on shortwave as World Mission Radio (WMR}. Its programs consisted of sponsored religion and it claimed on air that it was a USA station with its offices based in California. Its literature claimed the same thing. A US citizen had claimed in a federal US court that the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), had caused his own offshore station called Radio Newyork International to be illegally raided while it was broadcasting from a ship anchored in international waters off Long Island, New York. For proof the defence team had raised the issue of the Radio Caroline ship and questioned whether the USA could regulate its signals which could be heard in the USA. An Investigator assigned to the Official Solicitor and employed by the DTI, led the British part of a joint raid with Dutch officials to cause the cessation of all transmissions from the MV Ross Revenge. Once this had been accomplished that same official then responded with sworn testimony concerning Radio Newyork International which claimed to be owned by a British company and registered in an independent sovereign state called Sealand. The Investigator (James Murphy), then informed the US court that Sealand was a former British World War II sea fort that was within British territorial waters which was not a state, but a place occupied by squatters who had no legal power to register ships. The US courts accepted this information and used it against the defendant. 1990s The extra-ordinary powers that had been held by the Official Solicitor have been stripped away. In the 1990s the powers of the Official Solicitor (temporal) were further limited and the duties of the Official Solicitor redirected to become mainly a legal defender of the rights of children. References - Church of England
External sources - Official Solicitor and Public Trustee
- The Current Role of the Official Solicitor
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