A political speech that amounts to ‘defence lawyers bad, prosecution lawyers good’ purposefully misrepresents the criminal justice system. Whether you’re a victim, defendant, witness, juror, judge or disinterested citizen you should hope fervently that lawyers are doers of good.
I worry that this seismic change to our constitution is not being given the attention it urgently warrants. So I'll say again:
The government wants to abolish jury trials in order to address a court backlog caused by its own cuts, under the pretence that it was caused by Covid.
A good lawyer would have advised a client that if you’re minded to give a defence which is (a) incredible; and (b) if true, an admission of guilt, you should not go into the witness box.
Absolute legal scenes.
Few things get my goat more than Labour politicians who themselves benefited from a selective education, or have procured it for their own children, trying to deny it to everyone else. Show some consistency or acknowledge that your policy is wrong. Either way, stop the hypocrisy.