John Hirst, who took the UK to court over prisoners’ voting rights, once said, “MPs are not part of the Big Society themselves. More like Pig Society, with their noses in the trough.”
Politicians, as a group, with all their bickering over who was to blame over members of News International and Barclays Bank allegedly acting illegally, have been first to play down the existence of laws currently in force in the UK. The impression which David Cameron and George Osborne would like to leave you with is that we have generally under-regulated thanks to Labour. Wrong. In 2006, Labour enacted the Fraud Act, after a report by the Law Commission reviewing relevant jurisprudence here on the matter. This is exactly the same trick where the Tories tried to leave the media and the public with the impression that phone hacking may be morally wrong, but not illegal. Since #Leveson, they have been unable to peddle this myth.
It is the case that LIBOR-rate fixing is not covered yet by the financial regulations, but the Financial Services Bill will be amended to reflect that. Lawyers should not tolerate the undermining of the existence of the Fraud Act.
MPs are not above the law either, as some of them will know all too well from the expenses scandal. The Home Secretary has been found to be incorrect over the nature of the human right (article 8), has been found guilty of contempt of court, and was unable to count time, all earlier this year. As a Home Secretary, this will further add to the undermining of the perception of law in the general public.
Some MPs have tried to advance the case that certain lawyers are “ambulance chasers”, and that they are only in it for the money. This argument has been disseminated in a wish to propose that our legal aid budget, protecting the employment, immigration, housing, welfare benefit (inter alia) rights of citizens in the England, toward the socially-deprived end of society’s spectrum, is luxurious rather than essential.
So I call for all politicians to be careful in not undermining the English legal system.
