I spent a happy (?) evening last night watching MPs debate the Illegal Migration Bill. Some of the rhetoric on the government side was stomach turning, including the Home Secretary’s insistence on referring to a potential 100 million asylum seekers waiting to come to the UK!

But it was two references to lawyers that stood out.

Firstly, Sir John Hayes talked about ‘fat cat lawyers who have grown rich on the proceeds.’ Then Scott Benton included ‘lefty lawyers’ in his list of those responsible for the asylum ‘crisis’. He ws taking his lead from the Prime Minister. In last week’s PMQs, he responded to a question from the Leader of the Opposition saying that he was – ‘…just another lefty lawyer standing in our way.’

Where do we start.

Firstly, and I can only talk for solicitors, there is a primary duty under the SRA’s standards to ‘act in the best interests of each client’. It is not a duty to act in the best interests of whatever the government of the day wants to do. If I am an expert in immigration and asylum law, I’m not, then it is my professional duty to advise what the law is, and to ensure that the law is followed. So if a government takes action which is unlawful I have to advise the client and then do all that I can to ensure that the legal rights of the client are protected. Lawyers do not make laws, politicians do that, we cannot pick and choose which laws apply. When ministers attack lawyers, they are attacking the law itself. But lawyers have always been a cheap target.

Secondly, in my forty plus years in the law, I have not met a fat cat immigration lawyer. Most of the work is covered by legal aid rates.  No one gets rich from doing this work. The current rates include the following –

 

 

 

These are not hourly rates and include overheads!

Thirdly we have the ‘lefty lawyer’ insult. Legal challenges to immigration decisions are based on the rights of the individual. It is disturbing that the government has made human rights a ‘left wing’ issue, especially when the development of human rights law has such deep roots in Conservative history –

Steve Cornforth Blog: The EU, BREXIT and Human Rights (thestevecornforthblog.blogspot.com)

Was Winston Churchill really a raving lefty? Was David Maxwell Fyffe a lefty lawyer?

None of these insults have any basis in reality. They are nothing more than distractions. I even wonder if anyone actually takes any notice. But someone has to put the record straight…