Legal Aid: Why We are Fighting
/We hope the following provide some assistance in explaining the effects of the cuts, and why we are fighting them:
- Funding cuts to criminal legal aid will put many firms out of business, particularly community-based BME firms.
- Contracts for police station and court duty work represent price competitive tendering (PCT) by the back door.
- The £37,500 disposable income threshold for legal aid in the Crown Court will lead to many defendants being unrepresented.
- The one year residence test will mean that those who suffer injustice at the hands of the state will be unable to seek redress.
- The civil merits test means legal aid is no longer available for borderline cases. These often include points of the greatest public interest.
- The judicial review proposals seek to insulate government from being held to account. Lawyers will not be paid for the initial work done on JRs unless a judge gives permission for the case to continue. Good cases will not be taken on if lawyers cannot afford the risk of later not being paid for the work undertaken.
- There is a real risk that civil legal aid cuts, including the 10% cut in rates in 2011 and recent cuts to barristers’ fees, mean that in the future there will be barely any civil legal aid providers and none who have specialist expertise.
- Without legal aid, many people will be dissuaded from pursuing good cases in court.
- There will be no equality of arms in court for people deprived of legal aid who bring cases against the government or public authorities. The government has an open chequebook when it needs a lawyer.
- The government’s campaign is based on misrepresentation: of the UK’s spending on justice, on lawyers' levels of pay, and on the public’s views.
Download a printable version to distribute (pdf).
Download a printable version to distribute (docx).
Human Rights Lectures 2013-14
/Thursday 13 February 2014:
UK human rights violation in Afghanistan and Iraq - the present picture.
Speaker: Phil Shiner, Public Interest Lawyers.
Thursday 13 March 2014:
Reflections on the Mark Duggan inquest.
Speakers: to be confirmed.
All lectures at 6.30pm at the University of Law, 14 Store Street, London WC1A 7DE.
Admission free. We regret that CPD points are not available.
NEW Petition to Save Legal Aid
/The Justice Alliance has launched a new petition calling on David Cameron to halt the Transforming Legal Aid proposals accompanied by the following message:
As opposition to the legal aid cuts grows from diverse sections of society, now is the time to put down a marker. We need to send a strong and swift message to the Government, we need to show the widespread support for legal aid and we need to defend access to justice.
Please sign this petition http://chn.ge/1dWvURV and join with Joanna Lumley, the first signatory, who campaigned to secure rights for the Gurkhas, themselves reliant on legal aid. If Grayling has his way innocent people will be wrongly jailed, the state will enjoy immunity for unlawful acts, victims of trafficking and domestic violence will be left without support. Don't let that happen. Join the fight for legal aid.
Please share this petition widely and encourage others to sign it. It has reached nearly 5,000 signatories since it opened on Friday morning.
Haldane Lecture: Government Attacks on Squatters
/Missed the lecture? See it online below:
This video was recorded 15/01/2014
Day of the Endangered Lawyer 2014
/
The “Day of the Endangered Lawyer” is a joint initiative of European Democratic Lawyers (AED-EDL, www.aed-edl.net), the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (ELDH, www.eldh.eu) and the European Bar Human Rights Institute (IDHAE, www.idhae.org), who together represent lawyers all over Europe.
To mark the third "Day of the Endangered Lawyer", Rommel Durán Castellanos, Colombian Human Rights Lawyer and member of the Colombian Association of Human Rights Lawyers (Acadehum), the 'Pueblos' Legal Team, and the Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners, will speak in London on the serious risk situation for lawyers in Colombia, and the role that the international legal community can play in this situation.
Following Mr Duran's presentation, there will be a short panel discussion with Professor Bill Bowring, President of European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights, and Carlos Orjuela, Haldane Society, (Further speakers to be announced)
The event will be chaired by Professor Sara Chandler, Chair of the Law Society Human Rights Committee and of the Colombian Caravana UK Lawyers' Group.
To finish the event, we will show a new documentary entitled "Gotas que agrietan la Roca", about the José Alvéar Restrepo Lawyers' Collective (Cajar).
Friday, 24 January 201
6.30-8.30pm
The Seminar Room
Garden Court Chambers, 57-60 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3LJ
Rommel Durán is a human rights lawyer who tirelessly works to achieve justice in human and environmental rights cases in Colombia. Mr. Durán represents rural communities in Colombia in cases of land restitution, including the Pitalito Community in the Department of César. He is also involved in trying to protect fragile ecosystems from being destroyed by indiscriminate mining projects. Because of this work, he and his colleagues have been repreatedly threatened and attacked.
This event in London is co-organised by European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (ELDH), the Haldane Society, the Colombian Caravana UK Lawyers' Group and Justice for Colombia, and is hosted by Garden Court Chambers.
RSVP: colombian.caravana@gmail.com to secure your place at this important event
Haldane Lectures Spring 2014
/Wednesday 15th January 2014:
Government's Attack on Squatters
Speakers: David Wawtkinson, barrister and specialist in squatters rights; and a squatters' rights activist.
Thursday 13th February 2014:
UK Human Rights Violations in Iraq and Afghanistan - The Present Picture
Speakers: Phil Shiner, solicitor, Public Interest Lawyers.
All lectures at 6.30pm, University of Law, Store Street. Check in advance for CPD.
Drop the charges against revolutionary activists in Egypt: Defend the right to protest
/We condemn the sentencing of leading revolutionary activists in Egypt under the terms of the 2013 Protest Law, legislation described by Amnesty International as “a grave threat to freedom of assembly”. According to the law, protest organisers must apply in advance for permission to hold a demonstration, and it allows courts to impose jail sentences and fines for non-compliance. The law also gives the security forces authority to use lethal force in dispersing ‘unauthorised’ protests.
Ahmed Douma, Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel from the 6th April Youth Movement were sentenced to three years in prison and a 50,000 LE (£4000) fine on 23 December 2013, for organising a demonstration without police permission and allegedly attacking police officers. Mahienour el-Massry and Hassan Moustafa from the Revolutionary Socialists in Alexandria received 2 year jail sentences and 50,000 LE (£4000) fines on 2 January 2014 also for organising an unauthorised protest. Other activists from Alexandria who received 2 year jail sentences in connection with the same event include Lu’ay Al-Qahwagi, Amr Hafez, Nasir Abu-al-Hamd and Islam Muhamadein. They join hundreds of other opponents of the current military-backed regime who have been arrested in recent months, as part of a crackdown ostensibly targeting the Muslim Brotherhood.
As members of the legal profession, we note with particular concern that Mahienour el-Massry, a qualified lawyer who is well-known for her work on behalf of detainees in Alexandria, was arrested and beaten in March 2013 when attending a police station with a group of lawyers to represent arrested demonstrators. We call on the Egyptian authorities to take urgent steps to ensure that all those arrested and their legal representatives are treated with respect.
We call for all charges connected with the 2013 Protest Law to be dropped, and for the release of all those Egyptians detained or sentenced for the exercise of their democratic rights.
Further information: http://menasolidaritynetwork.com/2014/01/06/egypt-alexandrian-activists-face-two-years-in-prison/
Solicitors and barristers hold half-day of action
/On Monday – many months after the Haldane Society first called for direct action against the cuts to legal aid – courtrooms were forced to close as criminal barristers and solicitors refused to attend hearings. Hundreds of practitioners gathered outside court buildings where they were supported by campaigners, grassroots organisations and trade unionists.
Among the many protests across England and Wales, the Justice Alliance had organised a meeting of around 300 people at Westminster Magistrates’ Court where the range of demonstrators indicated the broad damage that these cuts would cause. Alongside the Haldane banner there were representatives of NAPO, Southall Black Sisters, the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign and the PCS. Speakers included Gary McKinnon’s mother Janis Sharp and Patrick Maguire of the Maguire Seven. Matt Foot reminded the demonstration of the unity against the cuts, shared by all but a handful of Tory MPs.
Typically, the Ministry of Justice has responded to today’s strike by desperately lying to the public. Legal aid minister Shailesh Vara told the BBC that “the average criminal bar barrister working full-time is earning some £84,000” (which is wrong even on the LAA’s own figures) and HMCTS claimed that 73% of Crown Courts and 95% of magistrates’ courts sat. But barristers speaking to the press reported earnings of £16,000, or £3.00-4.00 per hour, and it was clear from those inside the courts that lists were collapsing across the country.
The Haldane Society welcomes today’s solidarity against the decimation of legal aid and the progress that has been made in bringing the truth about practitioners’ fees to the public’s attention. But with the government on the defensive and public opinion coming around, the campaign must now move away from fees and focus on the importance of legal aid as a pillar of the welfare state. The government is waging a war on the poor and, as Chris Grayling so often points out, legal aid is not an exception from its agenda.
Strong turnout at surveillance and counter-terror panel discussion
/A panel discussion on "Surveillance, Counter-Terror Powers and Golbal Securitisation Strategies" took place on 10th December at the NUJ offices on Gray's Inn Road. The meeting was supported by the Haldane Society, CAMPACC, NUJ and other organisations.
The meeting was well turned out, with 80 people attending to hear the discussion by the excellent panel of speakers.
A podcast of the meeting is available here.
