Bar Council AGM: 7 September 2024

13 Aug 2024

Notice of 2024 Annual
General Meeting

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Bar of England and Wales will be an in-person meeting held at the Bar Council Offices, 289-293 High Holborn at 11.00 on Saturday 07 September 2024. It will follow a meeting of the Bar Council.
The agenda for the AGM will be made available to Subscribers, Circuits, Specialist Bar Associations and the Inns of Court as soon as possible after the closing date for resolutions (Friday 16 August 2024), but not less than seven clear days before the meeting (Friday 30 August 2024). In accordance with Part II, paragraph 16(a) of the Constitution, the Bar Council shall present its annual report and accounts at this meeting.

Regulation 32(c) of Part II of the Constitution of the General Council of the Bar states that the terms of any alteration to the Regulations in the Constitution shall be notified to all Subscribers in the notice convening the General Meeting (whether Annual or Extraordinary) next following the meeting of the Bar Council at which the alteration was made.

In compliance with that undertaking, this notice confirms any changes to the Constitution since the last AGM on 09 September 2023. All changes to the Constitution of the General Council of the Bar must be put to Bar Council members for approval by way of an Extraordinary Resolution. There have been no changes to the constitution since the last AGM.

Those wishing to attend the AGM should contact Isi Onwukwe-Anyadike, Governance and Committees Manager: ionwukwe-anyadike@barcouncil.org.uk

Resolutions

The Constitution provides that any barrister holding a valid practising certificate or subscribing voluntarily to the Bar Council (other than retired or overseas subscribers) is at liberty to bring forward any resolution (whilst noting the provisions of paragraph 7 of Part II, Schedule III of the Constitution of the General Council of the Bar) for discussion and decision of the AGM, provided that prior notice of the intention to do so shall have been given in writing to the Chief Executive, and provided that the resolution is seconded by another subscriber. It is suggested that resolutions are phrased "this meeting invites the Bar Council to examine ..."

Resolutions should be forwarded to Malcolm Cree at the Bar Council by 11:00 on Friday 16 August 2024, via Jamie Shaw, Head of Strategy, Planning and Governance: JShaw@barcouncil.org.uk.

Proxy Voting1

“A Subscriber shall be entitled to vote by proxy at an Annual General Meeting if he or she shall at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting have delivered or caused to be delivered to the Chief Executive a certificate that he or she is prevented from attending the meeting for due medical or religious cause and shall have nominated either some specified Subscriber present in person at the meeting or the Chair of the meeting ex officio to vote on his or her behalf (in which case any show of hands shall be so conducted as to ensure that the proxy has a further vote on behalf of the Subscriber in question in addition to his or her own vote).”

Forms for the certification and lodging of proxy votes can be obtained from the Executive Office.

Completed forms should be delivered to Malcolm Cree at the Bar Council by 11.00 on Friday 06 September 2024, via Jamie Shaw, Head of Strategy, Planning and Governance: JShaw@barcouncil.org.uk

AGM speaking limits2

“No Subscriber shall be permitted, without the consent of the Chair of the meeting, to speak more than once or for more than five minutes on the same matter, save in the case of the proposer of the resolution under debate, who shall be entitled to speak for not more than seven minutes.”