Barristers are not our cases. We do not choose our clients because we believe in their cause. If we receive instructions to represent in legal proceedings, we are ethically obliged to act.
It is the same misunderstanding that causes the Home Secretary to attack “activist lawyers” for representing people in immigration cases; the Prime Minister to deride criminal barristers as “lefty do-gooders”.
We take the cases we are given. That way nobody goes unrepresented.
Barristers have a duty not to refuse a case because of its objectionable nature or conduct/beliefs of the client.
If we refused to act for unpopular clients because of public or political pressure, it would be professional misconduct and the rule of law would quickly crumble.
As an aside, much of the criticism misunderstands fundamentally the issue in the case in question. This excellent article by @JoshuaRozenberg is required reading.
This furore has uncomfortable echoes of the case of Ronald Sullivan Jr, a Dean at Harvard who was hounded out of Harvard by students after he agreed to represent Harvey Weinstein.
Critics are more than entitled to take a view on a case. They are more than entitled to hope for a particular outcome, and to challenge or despise government policy. But attacking the lawyer professionally bound to act? Inexcusable.
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As readers of my books will know, I’m a jury sceptic. I think it’s probably the best system we have, but I believe it is unduly opaque and capable of improvement. I’m not ideologically fervent about a jury of twelve.
But.
We should not be uprooting fundaments of the justice system without careful research into the impact.
For instance.
David Lammy’s 2017 review identified jury trial as “one stage in the criminal justice system where B[A]ME groups do not face persistent disproportionality.”
It takes the police years to investigate allegations, because of your government’s cuts to police budgets.
It takes digital investigators years to analyse mobile phones and computers because of your cuts to forensic science and refusal to heed warnings gov.uk/government/new…
Suspects are left in limbo for years, “released under investigation” because your botched reform of bail laws - designed to catch headlines - had consequences that anybody could have foreseen. Cases drift as underresourced police forces are spread thin. lawgazette.co.uk/news/release-u…
Every time we warned, we urged, we begged, we wrote books - trying to draw attention to what government was doing to criminal justice, we were ignored.
Instead the public was treated to foaming nonsense about “soft sentences” and protecting statues.
It is very disappointing to hear the chair of the @MagsAssoc giving evidence to Parliament and suggesting that junior barristers are lying about their experiences of Covid in the magistrates’ courts.
When presented with first person accounts of barristers being compelled to attend magistrates’ courts in person for no good reason, the chair of @MagsAssoc first blames me(!), and then says it is someone “enjoying themselves at our expense on Twitter”.
This is appalling.
By all means use your time in front of the Justice Committee to complain about anonymous Twitter rabbits, but don’t you dare accuse my colleagues of lying, @MagsAssoc. You owe them a public apology.
You don’t have to commit a particularly serious crime to receive 6 months’ imprisonment. You don’t even have to be sentenced at the Crown Court - under Patel’s plans, sentences passed at magistrates’ courts, in conditions of abject chaos, could lead to automatic deportation.
Important to note that there is already a mechanism by which the Home Office can deport foreign nationals who cause serious harm or persistently offend, and who receive sentences of 6 months. But Patel wants to make it automatic, irrespective of harm caused.
The position currently is that any foreign national sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment is liable for automatic deportation. These plans would radically increase the number of people affected.
This lecture explores the Christmas classic Jingle All The Way through the lens of English & Welsh law.
Contributions are welcome, but I'm perfectly prepared to tweet the entire film to a wall of embarrassed silence.
This paper considers, inter alia, how Arnie/Howard’s intrepid search for the perfect Christmas present might have been different had he, Sinbad and the whole gang been subject to the law of England and Wales.
Some basic rules so we’re all singing from the same song sheet:
As I am not an American lawyer, nor diligent enough to do the research, we assume that all activity takes place in the jurisdiction of England and Wales.