Open letter to Tony Cross re Global Law Summit

Dear Tony

I can see you are in a bind and you have some hard decisions to make.  Somehow, you ended up being invited to speak at Chris Grayling's Global Law Summit.  Somehow you said 'yes'.  Perhaps eventually we will hear more about how that happened.  I know many Criminal Bar Association  members have been asking for details and no doubt their questions will be answered in time, but for now, how it happened remains a mystery, not least, because the MOJ are an inscrutable bunch.   It was just a little under a year ago, in the days of strikes and solidarity and "no returns" when the Ministry clearly hated the Bar and wouldn't have been seen dead swapping canapes with the head of the CBA, let alone inviting you to speak at their £1500 a head exercise in Perverting the History of British Justice.  (For full details on this unabashed corporate hijacking of the Magna Carta click here and for more on the MOJ's ambitious future plans with the Saudi government, read JackOfKent, here/. 

A year ago the solicitors were the Ministry's best friends with the Law Society then seemingly on board with government plans.  Then came the vote of no confidence in the Law Society, a change of guard at Chancery Lane and now it's the Law Society joining forces with their member solicitors and fighting to save what is left of our ever degraded criminal justice system while the Bar seems to be back in favour.  No more strike threats. Not too much public criticism of the government.  No immediate threat of radical action to save the solicitors' firms that keep the junior Bar alive from the wipe out coming with imposition of the new  two tier duty /own client system.  After a puzzling year, the top table is again sorted and the place settings have a more familiar feel.

So what will you do Tony? Will you speak truth to your audience? Will you upset the Lord Chancellors party? (He is after all very powerful; he even has the power to change dates in history moving the Magna Carta birthday, just early enough to ensure this event is held before the general election, and under his watch).  Will you perhaps defend the Bar, a worthy fight, and one I support, but one that would on this occasion, miss the point?

As a quick reminder,  as this not-the-Magna Carta-event gets underway, criminal solicitors, barristers, probation offers, prison officers and more will be demonstrating outside. We will be there because you cannot celebrate the importance of Magna Carta to this country, and the world, by removing people's access to justice, by decimating legal aid. You definitely don't celebrate Magna Carta by restricting access to Judicial Review and planning a withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights.  As the system fails to cope under the pressure of relentless cuts throughout , our Judges are facing ever more pressure to keep the system going whatever the damage they see daily before them.  The family Judges are starting to speak out. In the criminal courts one way to provide short-term life-support to a failing system is to allow the CPS an increasingly free hand to ignore Orders and Rules. 

And no, Tony. I do not say any of this is your fault?  It's the Lord Chancellor's baby and it's his party.  It's not your fault.  It's just that you should be outside with the rest of us, not inside, with a shiny invitation that is a thank you for ending the 'no returns' policy when the government were in real trouble.   All of us criminal lawyers and others working in this system know the damage that is being done by those who profess to protect the rule of law.  We will watch as they celebrate a system they are destroying and market their prison services management systems to foreign tyrants who like the brand of British Justice but with no requirement to adopt the lessons of its history.  For a tiny fraction of the sums meted out to keep corrupt banks afloat, thousands of British citizens have been denied the ability to use the law to uphold their rights.  That reduction in access to justice undermines democracy itself.  What use are laws if you cannot enforce them?

So here is a thought Tony. When your moment comes, you could make history.  When you get up to speak Tony you could speak truth to the ever more Orwellian sounding Ministry of Justice.   You could join those of us celebrating the real Magna Carta, you could add your voice to those using their democratic right to protest.  And it won't cost you £1500 to join us. You are our only voice inside Tony. Do right, fear no one.  You could cause quite the media event by choosing to leave the event and join us when your name is called.  You might even get an honourable mention in the real history of the Magna Carta.

Yours in solidarity,

Raymond Shaw