Posts Tagged ‘trial’

One Law For the Rich

Wednesday, October 5th, 2022

One Law For the Rich

On Saturday 5th October 2013 protesters marched from the Old Bailey to the Royal Courts of Justice in a protest against proposed cuts to Legal Aid. They accused Justice Secretary Chris Grayling of perverting the course of justice by these cuts and held a trial blocking the Strand outside the courts which found him guilty.

One Law For the Rich

Grayling’s cuts mean that justice has become largely only available to the very rich, with one law for the rich and another for the poor.

One Law For the Rich

Legal Aid enabled people without personal fortunes to fight unjust arrests, to challenge incorrect decisions by councils and much more. It was never a perfect system, but did at least provide some justice for those without huge incomes, which has now in many cases disappeared.

To claim legal aid you must pass two tests. The first is one of the ‘Interests of Justice‘, which largely restricts legal aid to those with charges against them which could result in their being sent to prison.

The second test is a means test. If you are on benefits such as income support you are likely to qualify, but if you or your partner have a joint income of over £21,000 you are unlikely to qualify. And if you are single the income limit is just over half that. These limits are considerably less than earnings of people in full-time employment on the current minimum wage.

The English legal system has developed through years of tradition and restrictive practices into a highly inefficient and expensive level with only the wealthiest able to afford many of the more highly qualified and experienced to argue their case. It has long been highly stacked against all those unable to afford the most expensive lawyers, though there have always been some distinguished figures ready to fight for some underdogs, at times without payment, as a matter of principle.

But there are still great areas where only the very wealthy can afford the law, and only the very rich are able to defend the case. Journalists may find themselves gagged, small businesses may be forced to desist because they do not have the resources to fight, even though they may have an excellent case. Our laws, largely enacted to protect the rights of the ruling class, have always favoured the interests of the wealthy.

The march gathered outside the Old Bailey, but it soon became clear that we were heading for the Royal Courts of Justice, though perhaps it was this slight subterfuge that enabled some protesters, headed by wheelchair users from DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) to block the road in front of the Royal Courts of Justice shortly before the main march arrived to join them.

Police quickly arrived to try to persuade the protesters to clear the road, but they were not moving, and after a few minutes began a mock trial of Chris Grayling, present as a man in a mask of his face with a dock around his waist.

The evidence was presented and witnesses cross-examined by wigged protesters before the larger than usual jury of protesters was invited to give its verdict. Unanimously they found Grayling guilty and the time came for his sentence was pronounced. There seemed to be no agreement about a suitably severe punishment, with most of those suggested no longer being available under UK law. The prisoner was led away (though unfortunately only to the pub opposite rather than prison) and the protest continued noisily, still blocking the road.

Police had been harassing protesters throughout, trying to get them to clear the road, and threatening arrest, though I think most people just moved to another part of the protest to avoid this. They had managed to clear one carriageway, but were still blocking this with a police van. Eventually DPAC came to a decision that the protest had been successful and it was time to bring it to an end. They told the police they would stay for another five minutes, and at the end of this did so triumphantly.

More about the protest and many more pictures at UK Uncut Road Block for Legal Aid.


Legal Aid & Illegal Confinement

Tuesday, October 5th, 2021

Eight years ago on Saturday October 5th 2013 I turned up outside the Old Bailey to cover a protest against the governments proposals to demolish a vital part of our justice system, Legal Aid. The proposals will mean that justice becomes largely only available to the very rich, with one law for the rich and another for the poor.

Of course our system of law in the UK is one which has as its base the protection of the wealthy and the establishment and in particular the rights of property owners, dating back to the ideas of private ownership of land introudced and used for its appropropriation by our Norman conquerers, but legal aid has provided a small and important gesture towards equality. The rich and powerful can still use the law to protect their interests, with injunctions and threats of libel and other actions. They can still call upon the police to protect their property and rely on our secret services to work for their interests.

Lee Jasper

The protest came after the government had been consulting on the changes to the legal aid system which proposed making it more restrictive and also cutting the fees to solicitors and barristers. Our combative in nature system of law is complex, time-consuming and allows those who can pay large fees to prolong litigation and have a better chance of success, with costs in some cases being in £millions. It’s a system that favours not the establishment of truth, but those who can employ the most persuasive liars.

From the Old Bailey the march made its way to the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, where I rushed ahead to find DPAC (Disabled Activists Agains Cuts) already making their way onto the pedestrian crossing to block the road. “They stopped on it and began to padlock together to form a block. The far half of the crossing was blocked by a line of figures dressed in gold, one holding the (plastic) Sword of Justice, and another her Scales.”

Police came and asked them politely to move but they didn’t respond. The marchers arrived for a noisy protest and then a mock trial of Justice Secretary Chris Grayling. A number of witnesses were called, some giving testimony of how without Legal Aid they would have been unable to fight their cases, and others reading written testimony from others, and then there was more chanting and drumming as well as poetry and some legal advice before the inevitable guilty verdict.

Police had been getting more impatient and insistent about the protesters leaving the road. They don’t like to arrest people in wheelchairs, partly because it looks bad in the photographs and videos, partly because of the difficulty of providing suitable transport, but also because like the rest of us (except possibly Tory ministers) they have a human sympathy with the disabled. “The DPAC activists in wheelchairs who were still blocking the road consulted with each other and decided it was time to leave, and that they would have a final five minutes of protest and then all leave together.”

I left for Parliament Square where a peaceful vigil was marking a year since British poet Talha Ahsan was extradited to the US. Those taking part, including his brother Hamsa and other family members said that his long-term solitary confinement comes under the UN definition of torture and call for him to be returned home and unjust US-UK extradition laws repealed.

As I wrote:
“Talha Ahsan, an award-winning British Muslim poet and translator has been detained for over seven years without trial and was extradited to the USA on 5th October 2012 with his co-defendant Babar Ahmad. Although he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, the Home Secretary Theresa May refused to prevent his extradition, unlike that of Gary McKinnon, raising suspicions that this relected an anti-Muslim predjudice.”

Talha is a UK citizen and his supporters say that he should have been tried in the UK. Eventually in the US he accepted a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to one of the several charges and was sentenced. The time he had already served meant he was then free and was returned to the UK. His six years before extradition in detention without trial or charge here remains among the longest in British legal history.

More at:

Bring Talha Ahsan Home
UK Uncut Road Block for Legal Aid

Home Office on Trial

Tuesday, May 14th, 2019

This wasn’t a normal protest on the wide pavement in front of the Home Office, but a theatrical piece in which the Home Office was represented in the dock of a court by a mysterious figure in blue, and I found it a little difficult to photograph with its rather different structure. It was good to have some better than usual props but I think perhaps it was an event more suited to video than still photography.

There is of course no doubt that the Home Office, in particular under recent ministers Theresa May and Amber Rudd, is guilty as charged, and has set up a vicious and racist system of rigged justice, indefinite detention, ill-treatment and arbitrary arrest and deportation under the name of the ‘hostile environment’, though this has longer and deeper roots.

The UK’s modern immigration laws have always been set up in response to racist popular sentiments, beginning with the 1905 Aliens Act, responding to fears about the numbers of poor Russian and Polish Jews arriving in the country. The huge increase in immigration detention began under New Labour, using PFI schemes in 1998 to build Yarl’s Wood, Dungavel, Oakington (which closed in 2010) and greatly expand Harmondsworth.

This huge expansion was needed because New Labour led a great programme of immigration enforcement within the UK, particularly of failed asylum seekers along with others who had overstayed their visas or entered the country illegally. Under Labour the first enforcement teams were set up, the Immigration Service transformed into a law enforcement agency, and new stricter laws on marriages and employing workers without legal right of residence were brought in.

Labour had begun the hostile environment, but it was Theresa May who gave it the name and ramped it up, with Amber Rudd following closely in her footsteps. After she was forced to resign over lying about the Windrush scandal, her successor Sajid Javid made some minor changes (mainly to the language used) and has suggested the UK ignore international laws on asylum.

Its racist immigration policies and enforcement was not the only only crime with which the Home Office was charged. There was a strong presentation of its policies on sex work, which have resulted in the deaths of many sex workers.

More pictures from the trial at People’s Trial of the Home Office .


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