UK Parliament / Open data

Lawfare and UK Court System

Proceeding contribution from Robert Neill (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Thursday, 20 January 2022. It occurred during Backbench debate on Lawfare and UK Court System.

Let us put it this way: Parliament may decide as a matter of policy that certain behaviours are undesirable and should be constrained by law. The courts would faithfully apply any law on the subject that Parliament passed. That is the right way, in my judgment, to deal with this. That relates, too, to the law regulating the professions. For the reasons I gave, we should be very wary of fettering lawyers’ ability to defend unpopular clients, which is not the same as unmeritorious clients. Remember why that is: there are many instances where injustice has been prevented by lawyers taking on an unpopular client and an unpopular cause. That is the point on the other side that we have to weigh in the balance before we go entirely down the path of saying that because we disapprove of someone, we should deny them redress in law.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
707 c577 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Back to top