An Open Letter Regarding the Quiet Death of English (And Welsh) Justice

[Insert name]

An open letter regarding the ‘quiet death of English ( and Welsh ) justice’.

I am sending this letter to you and all prospective Parliamentary candidates for this constituency. I am also sending this letter to the local media as it my intention, along with my colleagues, to at least draw public attention to your personal approach to the destruction of local medium and small businesses and to the end local access to Justice.

I also would welcome a meeting with you either personally or collectively with my colleagues to discuss these matters.

I would also appreciate it if you kindly did not act as a ‘post box’ and simply pass this letter on to Mr Grayling or the MOJ as a substitute for you having to express your own view. We all know what Mr Grayling’s views are and with respect, we do not want to see the same ‘cut and paste’ justifications again. They are wrong and constant repetition of the same misleading propaganda does not make it right or accurate. I want to know what you think not what Mr Grayling thinks. I am frankly tired of hearing from him for the following reason. Mr Grayling will simply trot out the usual incorrect nonsense about our legal aid budget being the ‘one of the most costly in the world.’

This is simply not true according to National Audit Office briefing for the House Of Commons Justice Committee February 2012 Ministry of Justice ‘Comparing International Criminal Justice Systems’. The evidence is clear that the impact of legal aid on the criminal Justice System (CJS) makes our legal aid spend precisely average when taking into account other countries spend on Judges and civil servants investigating and developing the defence case. [1] We are 13th In Europe. The ‘spend’ is falling even more since this recent report. The Justice Secretary’s civil servants know this and have confirmed as much. Look at the graph at the end of this letter.

But I want to take on and challenge the principle behind the cuts even though we know Mr Grayling is not being truthful in his international comparisons. The extraordinary excuse that due to the financial crisis caused by greedy bankers that we cannot afford to provide adequate funding for legal aid contrasts very poorly with the previously held views across all parties that legal aid was essential. Bear in mind that these views were held in when Legal aid was introduced in 1949 following the Rushcliffe committees report to Parliament in 1945 which established these basic principles:

•Legal aid should be available in all courts and in such manner as will enable persons in need to have access to the professional help they require. •This provision should not be limited to those who are normally classed as poor but should include a wider income group. •Those who cannot afford to pay anything for legal aid should receive this free of cost. •There should be a scale of contributions for those who can pay something toward costs. •The cost of the scheme should be borne by the state, but the scheme should not be administered either as a department of state or by local authorities. •The legal profession should be responsible for the administration of the scheme •Barristers and solicitors should receive adequate remuneration for their services.

[1][1] National Audit Office Briefing for the House Of Commons Justice Committee February 2012 Ministry of Justice ‘Comparing International Criminal Justice Systems’ Do bear in mind that, mainly due to the extraordinary levels of legislation that since the 1940’s the law has become even more complex for the ordinary citizen to cope with without professional legal help.

The point I am making is that after nearly becoming bankrupt due to our efforts in the Second World War the political classes nevertheless felt that it was essential that the law be open to all and not just to the wealthy. Compare and contrast the post war with the present day generation of politicians that are shamefully allowing Mr Grayling to dismantle this once great and internationally renowned legal system.

Am I exaggerating? Listen to what the impeccably and constitutionally non-political Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd has said ‘it was no good venerating old glories the country was no longer prepared to fund. Jury trials might have to be restricted to more serious offences than now. Even the traditional adversarial system, where each side's arguments are tested to destruction by the other, might have to be suspended in important areas of law. T

As the Article cited below puts it ‘The continental inquisitive system, where judges rather than opposing advocates do much of the evidence-testing, was once sniffed at by English jurists, but it can no longer be ruled off-limits on principle. For a judge to talk in these terms would once have been inconceivable, but today the unthinkable has to be thought. For without equal access to justice on both sides, a right that is being steadily destroyed, the scales become imbalanced and there can be no justice at all.’[2]

So what is being proposed is the dismantling of 800 years of UK history. A move away from our democratic system of Juries and even lay benches in favour of a foreign inquisitorial system whereby the ferociously independent defence Lawyer is replaced by the professional Judges and their civil service teams behind them. This brings me back to the fact that this growing but less independent service will still have to be paid for in the same way as it is now on the continent and we are back to the graph! Many of the systems which are more expensive have the inquisitorial system and teams of judges and civil servants doing what lawyers do in the UK but without our furiously independent legal profession. They are easier to control and manage politically though than lawyers which to most of us in the UK is a chilling thought.

Why do Politicians and some sections of the media ignore the obvious mismatch between what they say about police abuses in the tragic Lawrence and Hillsborough cases and even the way the police treated a cabinet minister Mr Andrew Mitchell, with how the Government is presently engaged in systematic dismantling of the very mechanism stet up to protect the public from police abuse? Speaking in the House of Commons, Mrs May said: "Policing stands damaged today. Trust and confidence in the Metropolitan Police and policing more generally is vital.

Why then attack the legal aid lawyers who are the guardians against police abuse. They are, to coin a phrase, the ‘watchers on the wall’ as the first line of defence against police abuse? The cuts will cripple their ability to hold the police and Crown to account under the safeguards set up by the Police and Criminal evidence act 1984 which enabled the public to have access to legal advice when in police custody where in the past innocent people had been induced to falsely confess as in the Birmingham six and Guildford four cases (and many other routine but shocking false confession criminal cases such as the Maxwell Confait case).

[2][2] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/07/legal-aid-the-quiet-death-of-english-justice Most people are not charged after arrest and many who are charged are then found not guilty mainly through the help of solicitors so this is an issue which potentially affects us all or our families and friends. "The legal system we have and the rule of law are far more responsible for our traditional liberties than any system of one man one vote. Any country or Government which wants to proceed towards tyranny starts to undermine legal rights and undermine the law." That is a quote from the late Margaret Thatcher.

Winston Churchill said: “The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.” The post war generation understood these things and despite the financial sacrifices involved in recovering from a world war nevertheless believed justice and the corollary of that namely legal aid was an important and essential requirement to negotiate the complexities of modern law. What has changed to make this comparatively wealthier country we now live in abandon this commitment? It is shameful.

Solicitor legal aid firms have an average 5% profit margin so any cut in income more than 5% leads to ruin. The Government intends to cut 17.5% overall but for many police station areas the real cut is over 30%! (In Swale, Kent for example the cut is an astonishing 42 %.) This will lead to bankruptcy of legal aid firms. We simply cannot survive and the Lord Chief Justice suggestion of abandoning Jury trial for professional tribunals is simply a reflection of the growing absence of lawyers in the courts due to the cuts backs in legal aid. It has already happened in civil courts and now it will definitely happen in our criminal courts where the liberty of the individual is at stake.

Mr Grayling is proceeding with these unsustainable cuts despite: 1. An unprecedented 18,000 response to his consultation all telling him not to do this. (Look in vain for any summary of responses pro MOJ reforms) 2. A promise broken that the reforms would be evidenced based when both the expert organisations commissioned could not provide him with evidential cover as they scream from every page ‘do not do this’. (Otterburn and KMPG reports)

But it is not just about our livelihoods as many of us could have earned a great deal more in other areas of law but felt a sense of vocation and commitment to legal aid. It is about the people you wish to represent after the next general election when you will by then have seen the damage and wrecked lives caused by this utterly foolish policy.

So this is a last ditch appeal to local politicians whatever your party affiliations to put the interests of the people before party ambition. I do not hold to the clichéd view that all politicians are ‘in it for themselves’ as I believe that most people enter politics for the most honourable of reasons namely to help their communities. Sometimes things get lost or muted along the way but the essential decency remains.

But I have to say the relative acquiescence of today’s political classes to Mr Grayling’s destruction of legal aid (our first non-lawyer Chancellor) and the supine way that MOJ propaganda is accepted uncritically with often total acceptance of bogus MOJ statistics despite the available evidence to the contrary is deeply depressing and a shocking betrayal of what previous politicians from all parties achieved consensually in less prosperous times immediately post war and thereafter. Surely it is time that politicians defended their citizens against this extraordinary abuse of executive power (not even putting these proposals before Parliament) and spoke out loudly for their communities likely to face legal advice deserts (and growing demand upon local political surgeries)? So please may I have your own considered view and not that of the MOJ. I will meet you one to one or if you wish jointly with my colleagues from my own and other local firms. We may even call at the right time for a hustings debate of all the candidates who will be well attended I believe but that is for the future. We are (I hope you may concede) an articulate bunch and we intend to make our voices heard. This letter is to find out on behalf of our families, friends, co-workers and the community at large what you are prepared to do to fight for your community and English justice. After 800 years we are not going to participate in the ‘quiet death of English Justice’ without great deal of loud and principled protest.

Yours Sincerely

Graph attached