The laws relating to sex often dominate headlines. Of late those sexual offences concerning the lack of consent are particularly under scrutiny. But the law can be broken even when it involves consenting adults, particularly when there’s money involved.
A non-lawyer friend once enquired of me as to whether I had proclaimed the end of the criminal justice system for the fourth or fifth time that year – the point being that I cried wolf too often. Despite the difficulties multiplying over the past few years, I have heeded the lesson. The nature of this job means you need a fighting spirit. We have to fight for our clients, for our profession and for the wider public interest. Lament is not an option. It was with wry amusement, therefore, that I read of the new-found concern for the criminal justice system from the right-wing press (and former Labour ministers) as a number of rape trials collapsed after disclosure issues.
Lady Justice is often depicted wearing a blindfold. The blindfold represents impartiality – the ideal that justice should be applied without regard to wealth, power or other status. However, austerity politics is playing on class divisions in the UK to test this ideal to its destruction. It can only be hoped that the election in June will prove to have been the beginning of the end of austerity in the UK.
