Monday Message
CBA Chairman’s Update:
Michael Turner QC
Personal Email: [email protected]
Tel: 07951157030
Headlines:
1. Do Right Fear No One; Chairman’s Comment.
2. The MOJ confirm our worst fears; the arrogance of ignorance,
the ignorance of arrogance.
3. The Human Rights Justice Select Committee.
4. The Law Society Webinar on their alternative proposal.
5. Army recruitment a massive failure and guess who is behind it?
6. For whose benefit is this country being run?
7. Death of a man who did right and feared no one.
8. Legal Action Group’s Low Commission report and want your feedback.
9 Forensic Access now in the market on DNA.
10. What’s In the Press
11. Stuart Wild catches me out despite the disguise.
1. Do Right Fear No One: Chairman’s Comment
When the guard is about to change there are always a few worries. Are they going to carry out the fight? Will they listen? Will they care? Do they know what they are talking about?
Over the past two weeks I have sat down with both Nigel Lithman QC and his deputy Tony Cross QC. I have no doubt in my mind that the answers to all of the above questions is YES.
The reality is that the CBA is your organisation now so if in the future your leaders start answering any of the above questions in the negative you know what to do about it.
Please give them a little time to bed in after September 1st. I do not believe you will be disappointed. They are both full of good ideas and are all set to hit the ground running.
Do Right, Fear No One
2. The MOJ confirm our worst fears; the arrogance of ignorance,
the ignorance of arrogance:
As with so many of our members, Jon Mack has not been content to let all the work be done by others. He has been ferreting away and has discovered that of the 35 staff employed by the MOJ in the legal aid policy team, there is a one legally qualified member of staff. You can find the full answer to his FOI HERE and visit his excellent blog for moreHERE.
The MOJ response to taking on the re-shaping of Legal Aid brings to mind Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel “Fahrenheit 451” where all books were outlawed.
The MOJ mirrors the ignorance and arrogance of many other Government departments who believe that they know best. You will see that the MOJ says that all of its untrained staff are in close contact with the lawyers within the MOJ. Those lawyers presumably know nothing about Legal Aid and are employed to advise on Government contracts. Even that area of specialty they seem woefully ill equipped to deal with, given the fiasco of MOJ procurement. Insult to injury is added when you realise that despite their obvious ignorance that Mr Grayling, himself wholly ignorant of the law, refuses to speak to the one person elected to represent the entire Criminal Bar.
I have offered my advice free to Government, as many others have in different walks of life. Instead they prefer to spend fortunes on paid advisers who know as little as themselves HERE.
If you do the maths the MOJ bill for outside consultancy and redundancies is £210 million and Mr Grayling says he wants to save £220. !
The fictional world created by Ray Bradbury in 1953 is closer than you think.
3. Human Rights Justice Select Committee
A reminder that the Human Rights Justice select committee is taking written evidence, take the opportunity to have your say HERE.
4. The Law Society Webinar on their alternative proposal.
Ignorance allows those whose seek to split our profession, fertile ground. Indeed there are those within are profession who play that game, always note, in their own self interest and no one else’s.
The Law Society led very much on this issue by Richard Harris and Richard Atkinson have genuinely put forward a scheme aimed at protecting the smaller provider. Because it does exactly that, it is unlikely that those who know so little in the MOJ will go for it. But it is a genuine attempt by the Law Society to Do Right and Fear No One. To understand it so as to be in a position to comment upon should you wish view their webinar on the proposal HERE.
Before, as some have done, even those who should know better, kicking off.
5. Army recruitment a massive failure and guess who is behind it?
If it wasn’t so very ruinous for the Country it would almost be amusing that this Government is either too stupid or to crooked to learn from its mistakes.
Last year army recruitment services were handed over to our old friends who are so very inept at organising piss ups in breweries. The cost? £44 m for 10 years. Read it HERE.
Come 2013 it has emerged that Capita has so far managed to recruit 367 of the 30,000 targeted for recruitment to the army reserve. More HERE.
Of course now they will have to call on the army to do what they have always done. No matter, Capita have trousered £440 m.
If the smell of rotting fish is not filling your nostrils by now you are asleep.
This kind of madness will continue if Mr Grayling has his way. Amazingly he clearly feels he has done so well at the MOJ that he deserves to lead the party HERE.
Frightening!
6. For whose benefit is this country being run?
If any of you still honestly believe that Government and Whitehall have anything but self-interest at heart read THIS and think again.
7. Death of a man who did right and feared no one.
Jacques Verges died last week. He was a French barrister who was known as the “devils advocate” because he represented some very detested defendants the likes of Klaus Barbie, Djamila Bouhired and others. His obituary is HERE.
Djamila Bouhired he saved from execution following her conviction for her role in planting bombs in cafes in Algiers. On her release they married and had two children. The struggle for liberation by the FLN was portrayed in, for me, one of the greatest films of all time, The Battle for Algiers
Very recent history informs us what certain sectors of society seek to do to lawyers who expose a truth in court which shatters the conventional stereo type.
It is the likes of Jacques Verges that keep a democracy honest. We salute him.
8. Legal Action Group’s Low Commission report and want your feedback.
The Low Commission have now published there report HERE and would welcome your feedback on their approach using the form HERE.
Please help them to help all.
9. Forensic Access now in the market on DNA
You will remember that last week we highlighted the views of the commons select committee on the idiocy of breaking up the FSS.
Forensic Access was at out fit formed by all the most senior FSS experts that the private sector suppliers will not employ because they were too expensive for the profits they had in mind.
Now they have won approval, quite rightly to offer DNA advice and expertise.
Well worth bearing in mind.
Press Release available HERE.
10. What’s In the Press
The Press is getting wise to Mr Grayling see:
Lowering the Bar
By: Julia Llewellyn Smith Sunday Telegraph 18/082013
As are the readers of the Mirror. See readers letter in the Sunday Mirror.
11. Stuart Wild catches me out despite the disguise
Do Right, Fear No One
Michael (Bloody) Turner