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Here to act, not to judge (Pt 2)

12 November 2021 / Theo Huckle KC
Issue: 7956 / Categories: Opinion , Profession
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What price justice? In a second update on the parlous state of our justice system, Theo Huckle QC explains why all of our people’s legal rights should be real and enforceable

In the first part of this article I referred to a commentary quotation about Rudy Giuliani and his appearances for former President Trump to challenge electoral results in last Autumn’s US Presidential race: ‘A lawyer may have any old client, but a lawyer cannot tell the court any old thing. Even a lawyer as partisan as Rudy Giuliani could not bring himself to mislead a court by alleging electoral fraud for his client Donald Trump, though both freely made such allegations outside of the courtroom,’ (Prospect, ‘Should a lawyer ever refuse to act in an unpleasant case?’, David Allen Green, April 2021).

I made it clear that deliberate misrepresentation of any form by a lawyer is an abomination, that the common suggestion that lawyers ‘lie’ on behalf of their clients is anathema

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NEWS
Commercial leasehold, the defence of insanity and ‘consent’ in the criminal law are among the next tranche of projects for the Law Commission
Tech companies will be legally required to prevent material that encourages or assists serious self-harm appearing on their platforms, under Online Safety Act 2023 regulations due to come into force in the autumn
The Bar has a culture of ‘impunity’ and ‘collusive bystanding’ in which making a complaint is deemed career-ending due to a ‘cohort of untouchables’ at the top, Baroness Harriet Harman KC has found
Lawyers have broadly welcomed plans to electronically tag up to 22,000 more offenders, scrap most prison terms below a year and make prisoners ‘earn’ early release
David Lammy, Ellie Reeves and Baroness Levitt have taken up office at the Ministry of Justice, following the cabinet reshuffle
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