8 October 2014
With the battle against the cuts to Legal Aid and changes to the Criminal Justice System still ongoing, our Head of Criminal Defence, Director and Chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, Bill Waddington, has written another letter to The Times:
“Sir, Chris Grayling is right to assert that Britain has always been a champion of human rights (“Britain respects human rights and is entitled to its sovereignty”, October 3). However, one wishes that he would stand up for this historical role rather than dismantle it.
The British bill of rights should not be seen as defending British interests, but the latest in an exhaustive list of attempts by the Lord Chancellor to gnaw away at the foundation timbers of the rule of law. Nor is it an attempt to protect British citizens from foreign laws, but an assault on the protections British citizens enjoy against the encroaching tentacles of their own state.
So far the timbers have proved too strong for him, but it is only a matter of time before the Lord Chancellor’s continued assault on access to justice, legal aid and the principle of equality before the law washes away what remains of our once world-renowned justice system. How ironic, indeed tragic, that next year we should celebrate 800 years of Magna Carta, we may instead mark the final nail its coffin.”
