The Secret Barrister Profile picture
Sep 10, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read Read on X
There’s some odd jubilation in some quarters about the Attorney General citing the Miller judgment in her statement attempting to justify breaching international law.

Unfortunately, like the statement itself, the reference to Miller is legally meaningless.

You’ve been fooled.
Miller confirms the long-established principle that Parliament is sovereign, but that is not in doubt. Nobody disputes that, as a matter of domestic law, Parliament has the power to legislate contrary to international law.

But we would still be in breach of international law.
Miller is wholly irrelevant to that argument. It does not provide a defence nor a justification for breaching international law.

By citing it, the Attorney General is trying to distract and manipulate those who don’t understand the law.

And some of those people are letting her.
Remember the last episode of Friends where Phoebe causes widespread panic on a plane by shouting that there’s a problem with the “left phalange”?

That, in legal terms, is what the Attorney General is doing by citing Miller.

The crowing is embarrassing to watch.

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More from @BarristerSecret

Jan 9
As the issue of compensation for miscarriages of justice is rightly in the news, it’s timely to note that in 2014, the government changed the law to make it all but impossible for people wrongly convicted and imprisoned to claim compensation.
Chris Grayling and Theresa May led the charge to deprive the wrongly convicted of compensation, changing the rules so that those people had to effectively prove their innocence - an impossible standard to meet.

The details are in Stories of The Law & How It’s Broken.

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When this spiteful non-compensation scheme was challenged in the courts, the current crop of politicians - those who are now positioning themselves as champions of the wrongfully convicted - fought all the way to uphold it.

amp.theguardian.com/law/2018/may/0…
Read 4 tweets
Dec 3, 2023
Can highly recommend this piece in today’s Sunday Times if you’re looking for a facile misunderstanding of what a barrister actually does.

If Mr Syed had bothered to speak to a barrister, or indulge in the most cursory research, he would have learned at least two things: 🧵

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1. 90% of a barrister’s career is spent on making decisions. Advising on courses of action, of legal risk, future consequences, assessing evidence and making split-second judgement calls (both in and out of court) that can make an irrevocable decision to a person’s life. Image
2. It’s an obvious one, and an old favourite, but given that it seems to take Mr Syed by surprise:

BARRISTERS ARE NOT THEIR CLIENTS.

We ask questions in court and test evidence, on behalf of whoever instructs us, because that is our job.

We are not expressing personal views. Image
Read 4 tweets
Aug 3, 2023
Ah, hello old friend.

It’s been a while.

Let’s hop back on the horse: Why this story about legal aid is as misleading as it is brainless.

[THREAD] 🧵

#LegalAidLies
Readers are invited to conclude that £100,000 (£100,028, to be precise) is too much to spend on this very serious case, in which an MP was murdered. A “ridiculous amount of money”, we’re reliably told by Conservative MP @nigelmills.

Well let’s see. Image
The first teeny, tiny point - and I really am being picky - is that, despite @nigelmills confidently asserting that the defendant “admitted the killing”, that’s not actually true. Not really.

Because the same article tells us that he denied murder and had a 7-day trial. Image
Read 22 tweets
Jul 24, 2023
There is something I've been reluctant to talk about.

I didn't ever want to really talk about it. But the question has been asked, and if one person is thinking it, others may be too.

So I'll address it head on:

How is Taylor Swift's legal analysis in "no body, no crime"? 🧵
🎵He did it, he did it🎵

She says as the sirens blare. Nothing like a quick rush to judgement before literally *any* evidence has been called, eh Swifty?

But let's allow for the fact that you're worried about your friend, and look at some of the evidential principles in play.
First though, house rules:

Unfamiliar with the full lyrics? Then take the time to listen *in full* before going any further.

If you haven't read the sentencing remarks, you're in no position to comment.

Read 17 tweets
Mar 25, 2023
A final (for now) word on my colleagues who don’t and can’t prosecute criminal cases, but are performatively declaring that they *won’t* prosecute certain types of cases.

This second paragraph vividly illustrates the danger to which they are exposing us criminal practitioners.
The whole point of the cab rank rule is that it provides the answer to the question: “How can you represent [X]?”, when X is an unpopular client or cause.

The minute we are perceived to be picking and choosing between “good” and “bad” defendants, it all breaks down.
It means - as the activists explicitly state - that other barristers can be targeted. “Your colleagues refuse to represent X, so why are you?”

It aligns us personally with our clients.

It exposes those of us who defend & prosecute the most dangerous criminals to very real risk
Read 4 tweets
Mar 22, 2023
There’s a reason that criminal defence lawyers will tell you that the defence case is usually at its strongest before the defendant gives evidence.
Always good fun to watch a leading silk's poker face as their client sets fire to his own trousers in the witness box.
Pannick's expression as his client starts shouting at the committee. Well worth £220k.
Read 5 tweets

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