How the government are putting justice up for sale

Justice is up for sale: the Probation Service is being privatised, the likes of G4S are set to take over legal aid contracts and there are even plans to flog off the courts to private companies.

The proposed reforms to legal aid pave the way for the corporate bloodsuckers to move in. Here’s how:

1) The Legal Services Act 2011 opened up the law to non-lawyers, with firms like Eddie Stobart (better known for their lorries) now entering the market.

2) In their consultation paper, “Transforming Legal Aid: delivering a more credible and efficient system”  the Ministry of Justice set out plans to reduce the number of firms being awarded legal aid contracts from 1600 to 400 (and in the Thames Valley from 42 to just 4).

3) These contracts will be awarded to the lowest bidder.

4) A defendant’s right to have the legal aid lawyer of his choice will be removed. In future he will simply have to make do with the lawyer allocated to him by the state.

The combined effect of these last two changes means that all competition will be on price, not quality. Doing a good job, building a good reputation, will count for nothing because no-one will be able to choose you over your competitors. On the other hand, firms will have to constantly cut costs to stay afloat. This will mean cutting corners when it comes to looking into expert evidence or mental health issues or potential witnesses or chasing police for disclosure of, say, CCTV evidence.

In turn this will lead to miscarriages of justice.

The lessons from America, where many states operate this type of system, are stark. In Laurence A Benner’s 2009 study “The Presumption of Guilt: Systemic Factors That Contribute Towards The Ineffective Assistance of Counsel in California” one lawyer explains that he was able to handle a high volume of cases because 70% of his clients pleaded guilty at the first appearance, after he had spent 30 seconds explaining the prosecutor’s plea offer to them. In Missouri, the director of the  state Public Defender Commission commented in 2011 that “triage has replaced justice in Missouri’s courts” with attorneys forced to “take shortcuts that lead to wrongful convictions”.

In this world of assembly line justice it is the big corporations that will have the economies of scale to thrive. Meanwhile, High Street firms with an ethos of serving their communities and clients, will go out of business in their hundreds. So much for a government that trumpets small businesses and localism!

So what can you do to fight this? A good start would be signing the SaveUKJustice petition. If it attracts over 100 000 signatures it will trigger a debate in parliament and bring much needed to scrutiny to these half  baked ideas.

Secondly, spread the word. Tell your CLP, your union and anyone else who will listen. Just as we must fight the stealth privatisation of the NHS, so we must fight the take over of our justice system by corporations motivated only by profit.

Thirdly, join in the debate. As a party we must show alternatives: demonstrate how we can crack down on the real waste in the criminal justice system without undermining justice. Legal aid was a Labour invention, created in 1948. Atlee understood that access to legal representation was as much part of Labour’s crusade for social justice as providing access to healthcare or decent housing.

Saving that system is a cause we must urgently take up again.

Tim Starkey has worked both as a prosecutor and a defence lawyer and was Labour’s candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner in the Thames Valley