I am fed up with Tory attacks on lawyers who defend people against injustice, discrimination, abuse and deportation using the laws parliament has created when they say nothing about those right-wing lawyers who spend their time attacking almost everything of value.
This cover from The Mail today is typical of the attacks on lawyers. In this case, lawyers wanting enough pay to do the job society asks of them is enough reason to attack them. It’s appalling that day in, day out, being a decent lawyer involves abuse from the state and media.
I find this totally objectionable. Maybe that’s because I am woke. I am aware of injustice. I think the law should prevent it. I am delighted that for so long parliament shared that view and put laws in place to protect people and that there are lawyers who will take these cases.
There are, however, lawyers who do deserve criticism. Mysteriously I never hear the Tories talk about them. Nor do I notice The Daily Mail doing so.
Let’s start with a group I have long thought objectionable. They are the City lawyers, earning a fortune, who design tax abuse schemes with the aim of making the rich richer at cost to society at large. Why do we tolerate them still?
Then there is the small army of lawyers in tax havens, whose only reason to exist is to undermine the democratically approved laws of countries like the UK. Why do we still tolerate their persistent assault on democracy?
After them are the corporate lawyers who queue up to threaten legal action against the state if a government now proposes any form of action to protect society that might reduce their client’s profits. Why do we tolerate this fundamentally anti-social behaviour?
Also in the legal sin-bin are those lawyers who make it their job to write unfair contracts that impose harsh penalties and charges on those who might fall foul of a commercial arrangement. They know they are stacking the odds against those who can’t understand the small print.
And I will never understand the lawyer who works for the landlord who evicts tenants without consideration of that tenant’s real circumstances.
Or, come to that, the lawyer who plies a trade in strike-breaking, or imposing other penalties and conditions on workers already at breaking point.
These are the lawyers whose actions need to be questioned. They are the ones who pursue profit without consideration of ethics and who seek to impose the law without taking into due consideration the injustice that can arise from doing so.
In some cases these lawyers are, quite literally in my opinion, the enemies of the state.
But these lawyers are those who the Tories apparently think are going about their rightful business without further comment being required when what they are actually doing is seeking to find ways to use the law as a means to oppress people.
I may be woke. So too are the lawyers the Tories hate. But the Tories are not asleep. They know that there is abuse within society undertaken by lawyers, day in and day out, and they don’t just tolerate it; they quietly applaud it.
That’s what I hate, because their tolerance of this abuse is at the heart of their system of injustice. I don’t and never have tolerated this injustice.
We have a choice. We can support lawyers who support justice: the woke ones, that is. Or we can support lawyers who promote injustice. Our government supports the wrong ones. It’s our job to support justice in that case.
Originally tweeted by Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) on 23/08/2022.
Editor: The champions of our rights, freedoms and the rule of law are under sustained and worsening attack:
Maybe, just maybe, the #RightsRemovalBill wasn’t ever about improving anyone’s life
Which other EXPERTS does Gov think have “flawed understanding”?
All of them. Even those they hired to look specifically at these issues
Gov’s latest argument is that UN experts don’t understand the “UK tradition of liberty”, which according to the #RightsRemovalBill apparently means:
1️⃣Gov removing your rights
2️⃣Public bodies ignoring your rights
3️⃣You’re unable to challenge abuse of your rights
Thankfully there is still time to #SaveYourRights.
More than 110,000 people have so far signed our petition to bin the #RightsRemovalBill. Add your name today
Please sign the petition here.
Originally tweeted by Liberty (@libertyhq) on 23/08/2022.
