As part of his controversial reforms to Criminal Legal
Aid, Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, wants to deny the right to choose
their own lawyer to anyone arrested who is poor and, therefore, needs to rely
on legal aid. This strikes at the heart of a suspect’s right to proper representation. It also runs counter to
the usual Tory mantra that choice in public services is essential. A powerful
incentive to providing a good service is removed, if a client is allocated to a
lawyer and then cannot leave them.
When asked about this by the Law Gazette last week, Grayling said:- “I don’t believe that most people who find themselves in our criminal
justice system are great connoisseurs of legal skills. We know the people in
our prisons and who come into our courts often come from the most difficult and
challenged backgrounds.”
Such a comment would be crass coming from any politician.
Grayling, however, is the Justice
Secretary. He ought, therefore, to be concerned about justice for all and not
least for those “from the most difficult
and challenged backgrounds”. His assertion that such people should be
denied the right to choose who represents them because they are not capable of
making the choice is breath-taking in its assumptions and factually wrong.
Who are the people that Grayling wants to deny choice to?
Based on my own experience as a criminal
solicitor some years ago, a significant number of them are likely to be
innocent. Most of those who get involved in the criminal justice system are
“mad”, “sad” or “bad” – and those who might be considered “bad” are by far the
smallest of these three categories.
And who will these lawyers be, on whom clients will have
to rely to establish their innocence or to plead in mitigation? You will have
seen the lorries belonging to the Eddie Stobart haulage company. Incredibly, Eddie
Stobart is a leading contender in bidding for the new criminal legal aid
contracts. There are to be 400 new “mega-firms”. Contracts are likely to go to
the lowest bidders. Serco, G4S, Capita and Tesco are all rumoured to be planning
to bid.
Grayling claims that the choice of lawyer does not
matter. This is plainly nonsense and particularly so in our adversarial system
of justice. I have no doubt that Grayling would not take this attitude for
himself or someone close to him. It has been notable how the recent rich
defendants before the courts, Chris Huhne, Vicky Pryce, Stuart Hall, Rebekah
Brooks etc have all chosen to employ top QCs.
Equality before the law is as essential a pillar of
democracy as the right to vote every five years. In many ways there is already
one legal system for the rich and another for the poor in the UK but Grayling’s
reforms will seriously exacerbate the divide.
We are becoming a less decent and civilised country. One
more like the USA with its notoriously two-tiered justice. One that does not much care about
miscarriages of justice if they happen to those from the “most difficult and challenged backgrounds”.
Grayling is trying to bring in his reforms without any
parliamentary debate. If you think that, at the least, MPs should debate them,
then please consider signing the online petition to “save UK Justice" at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48628
No. 311
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