Many have reported the failure of a major fraud trial because no barristers were available to defend four of the six in the dock because fees have been reduced to such a level by the government that those with appropriate qualification cannot afford to undertake the work as a personal dispute between the prime minister and his brother, who made the application to bring the trial to an end.
Well, so it might be, but it's also very much more significant than that. Fraud trials, and tax trials come to that, or often complex and expensive and require legal representation of pretty high calibre. And if that representation is not going to be available then the prospects for bringing such cases to court will be decidely limited. The consequnce is obvious. Fraud will carry no risk of penalty and the tax gap will increase.
Removing funding from justice is not just about making the government's books balance. It is about the operation of the rule of law that makes the reality of government possible. But no doubt that has never occurred to Osborne, Cameron, Clegg and Alexander. Please despair, noisily, preferably.
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Hi Richard, not sure if this is a good analogy but it reminds me of cycling author and editor of Bikehub and Bike Biz Carlton Reid, who said about buying bikes ‘you can’t buy champagne of a lemonade budget’.
On the other hand, it may be because fat cats want loads more champagne and hence are willing to let justice fall by the wayside.
I have tweeted and FB’d your post and I look forward to reading many others by you
Thanks
Richard this may not be appropriate if so please delete.
I know of two cases where the wife has been left, with debts (and it can work the other way round)and the husband has been able to afford a solicitor and she has not. They have had to rely on website and family. It would seem, however, that the judges are keeping this in mind and, to an extent. making up for the deficiencies of the system. But it should not be this way. Justice is not served where people who can afford it, buy an advantage.
The consequences of this policy may not have occurred to Osborne, Cameron, Clegg and co initially, Richard, but I’m damn sure they did to the specialists who were advising them. Furthermore, even if this wasn’t the case – which I doubt – this particular consequence has been flagged up for at least the last year, along with the many other possible or likely consequences of this policy.
So, whichever way you look at it, this outcome cannot – and indeed should not – be put down to ignorance on the part of politicians, civil servants or anyone else involved with the reduction in legal aid policy. It’s yet another example of the “cuts” agenda being used as a smokescreen for the implementation of policies that have an entirely different aim. In that sense the impact this policy is now having on mayor fraud trials has a similar underlying aim to the government’s tax avoidance strategy of PR and media guff about getting tough on tax avoidance (regularly spouted by Cameron, Osborne, Alexander and Gauke) whilst simultaneously implementing policies that create an environment in which it gets easier. In short, this is simply another strand to the overarching (i.e. primary) objective of this government – to advance policies that favour big business and the few in the shortest possible time and across as many policy domains that it can before the next election.
Ultimately, I’d advise that nobody is taken in by the faux ignorance of anyone involved with this government’s policies when the consequences become apparent (unless they happen to be a Libdem, of course, where it’s clear that the principle that ‘ignorance is bliss’ clearly became a necessary requisite early on in this government). Most of the impacts and outcomes now claimed as “unintended consequences” have been obvious to anyone who took the time to do a little research. But therein lies another mark of this government’s approach to governing: they have no interest in any collateral damage that results from the pursuit of their primary policy objective.
Wholeheartedly agreed
Ivan and Richard – not only do I wholeheartedly agree, but I have come to believe that this matter is THE KEY issue, since, in a State with an unwritten constitution as is ours, access to justice is THE KEY weapon against an over mighty state.
Time and again, before we had a functioning democracy, it was our Common Law which offered the only defence against tyranny (the way e.g. Coke told King James l and Vl he could NOT personally sit in law cases, and later in that century when the jurors in an important political case refused to bring in a guilty verdict, even on pain of imprisonment).
Once we had a more functioning democracy, this defence was less needed, though no less important. Now, alas, in our enfeebled State, captured by corporate bandits and vandals, ONLY a freely accessible system of law, with an free judiciary can stand against the power of the State.
As regards access, we are seeing the whittling away of the power of the legal system, by restricting it to being a “rich man’s plaything”; as regards the freedom of the judiciary, Iain Duncan Smith showed his contempt for that by retroactively changing the law oh is poisonous Workfare programmes, when he lost in the Court of Appeal. Undoubtedly, the next stage will be political appointment of judges and the curbing of the judiciary (not to speak of the repealing of the Human Rights Act, and the writing of a new, equally poisonous, “Bill of Rights” = rights for the 1% and duties and obligations for everyone else.
I really DO fear for this country’s freedom, and can only treat with amusement the initiative the Facebook Group “A Vote of NO Confidence in the Coalition”, which will be marching on Buckingham Palace on the 19th July, (see https://www.facebook.com/events/1498451843711107/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular) seeking to invoke Article 61 of Magna Carta, which purportedly validates “lawful rebellion”, as though such law were still operative, when the best commentators believe the Article lapsed before the end of Henry lll’s reign, if not earlier. Good luck to them, and I would love them to succeed, but I’m not holding my breath.
how are the defendants getting legal Aid? Are they no bankrupt? It’s damned hard to get Legal Aid -I had a hard job in relation to my bedroom Tax appeal even though I’m practically skint!
I was having same conversation with a friend in Nero’s in Ely this morning. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would say this has been engineered so that VHCC involving elite interest will never be brought to justice. But of course I will accept that it is an unintended consequence of legal aid cuts.
I can’t trace any public warnings on the implications of curs to legal aid for fraud/tax . Who made them? Labour? Lib Dems?
I think the Government think these are relatively easy wins politically because, lets be honest, no-one likes lawyers.
I could understand trying to drag back expenditure on civil cases, because vast sums are wasted to no avail, but that is more to do with a culture which seems to require everything to follow a contract. (I may be wrong but I remember once reading that the US had a lawyer for every, say, 1,000 citizens whereas Japan had a lawyer for every 100,000 citizens.
Trying to economise on criminal cases can’t be right & can only lead to hideous consequences. If you want to know what a badly funded criminal defence results in, read Bonfire of the Vanities, or just read the life story of the late Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter.
@ eirugenus
The REALLY crucial change, allied to the cutting (savaging?) of Legal Aid, lies in the Government’s attempts to restrict access to Judicial Review – a really powerful instrument for individual David’s fighting the Goliath State.
See the Guardian on this at http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/apr/30/judicial-review-changes-all-party-committee
I really DO fear the “independence of the judiciary” will come to be more honoured in the breach than in the observance by this “viral” Government (“viral” because it seeks to infect every cell and component of the body politic with is destructive ethos and modus operandi)