The Bundle: the Gamu factor and monkeying with national sovereignty

This week at Guardian Law, we're pleased to tie in our legal heroes series with Black History Month by featuring black lawyers. David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham and the first black Briton to study a Masters in Law at Harvard Law School, kicks it off with a tribute to Sir Sydney Kentridge . Meanwhile, at the Conservative party conference, Kenneth Clarke reveals what cuts will mean for the courts and William Hague announces a sovereignty clause in a EU law. Carl Gardner reckons it's a pointless, perilous sop to Eurosceptics - let us know what you think in the comments or on Twitter . This week's top UK stories • Independent body set up to deal with complaints against lawyers • Black and female young offenders 'failed by legal advice' • Baha Mousa inquiry castigates intelligence chiefs for delays This week's top stories from around the world • US military funeral protest case opens in supreme court • Terrorist trial judge excludes witness over possible torture links • Blair's case for Iraq invasion was self-serving, lawyers tell Chilcot inquiry This week's top comment, features and best of the blogs • BabyBarista: London Counsel • Neil Rose: Ombudsman service puts lawyers on the receiving end of justice • Afua Hirsch: The new Equality Act - do you know your rights? What you said: best comments from our readers • On Afua Hirsch's blog on the campaign to save X factor's Gamu Nhengu from deportation , Crowther says At present the appeal success rate in asylum claims is approximately 20%. That might not sound all that high, but it means one in five of the people the Home Office claim can be deported, are later found to be at risk of persecution upon return. Imagine the uproar there would be if one in five people found guilty at trial were innocently imprisoned? • On Joshua Rozenberg's piece on UK government plans for a more inquisitorial approach in courts , RichardMoorhead says There is evidence from ombudsmen schemes that a more inquisitorial approach can help correct power imbalances in a way which legal representation may or does not. A structural issue is that in international comparative terms, spending on our courts is very low. This is the reverse side of our legal aid coin: we've spent more on legal aids and les son courts than comparator jurisdictions. • On Carl Gardner's article on the sovereignty clause , AlexC says The idea of our totally supreme parliament passing an Act that makes a repealable declaration of parliament's total supremacy is one of the most comical things ever proposed, even by a Eurosceptic. Best of the web • On the EJIL:Talk! blog, Dapo Akande asks if China is changing its view of international tribunals • On ibanet.org, Clive Stafford Smith discusses Guantanamo Bay and the US and UK legal systems • On the Human Rights in Ireland blog, Eoin Daly writes about the French consitutional court's decision on the burqa ban