{"id":52485,"date":"2020-08-28T07:12:24","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T06:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=52485"},"modified":"2020-08-28T08:38:39","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T07:38:39","slug":"we-need-activist-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2020\/08\/28\/we-need-activist-lawyers\/","title":{"rendered":"We need activist lawyers. They are our protection from a government that is on the path to fascism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Law Society tweeted this yesterday:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We condemn a Home Office video referring to immigration lawyers who provide legal advice to migrants as \u2018activist lawyers\u2019.<br \/>Solicitors advise their clients on *their rights under the laws created by parliament*<br \/> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4FHvIJ1RW5\">https:\/\/t.co\/4FHvIJ1RW5<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WcgCm7RzdM\">pic.twitter.com\/WcgCm7RzdM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; The Law Society (@TheLawSociety) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheLawSociety\/status\/1298930658698559488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 27, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It is now apparent that this claim by the government was not a \u2018one off\u2019.\u00a0Note the quotes in this tweet:<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/stand_for_all\/status\/1299227380209397760<\/p>\n<p>That The Times is using the same language as the Home Office is not by chance: the aim is to discredit those lawyers who are doing what we expect lawyers to do in in a society that upholds the rule of law, which is to defend their clients\u2019 rights as defined by law.<\/p>\n<p>To vilify those lawyers who are defending human rights that are enshrined in law is deeply dangerous.<\/p>\n<p>It suggests that the government sees lawyers as an enemy. That, of course, is part of the route to fascism.<\/p>\n<p>It suggests that some people do not deserve the rights the law provides to them, as others do, but which only those others are entitled to enjoy. That, of course, is also part of the route to fascism.<\/p>\n<p>And it eventually says that only those who conform to the government\u2019s expectations \u00a0should think of practising law. Again, that is part of the route to fascism.<\/p>\n<p>And I think that if we have a government that is clearly on the path to fascism we have a duty to say so. So I am doing so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Law Society tweeted this yesterday: We condemn a Home Office video referring to immigration lawyers who provide legal advice to migrants as \u2018activist lawyers\u2019.Solicitors<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2020\/08\/28\/we-need-activist-lawyers\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}