“Love them or loathe them”, the public interest is dependent on firms such as Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) and Leigh Day to hold the government to account, says Legal Action Group director Steve Hynes.
PIL is due to close on 31 August. The Legal Aid Agency announced earlier this month that it had terminated PIL’s contract because the firm had breached its contractual requirements.
Both PIL and Leigh, Day face accusations of professional misconduct in connection with the Al-Sweady inquiry, which was set up to investigate allegations that British troops killed Iraqi civilians at a check-point near Basra in 2004. The accusations are before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and have not been substantiated or refuted.
Writing in NLJ, Hynes notes that both firms have acted for clients in cases where the government was found to have acted illegally and to have held the government to account.
Phil Shiner, partner at PIL, “particularly has history with the Ministry of Defence”, namely the case of Baha Mousa, the Iraqi hotel worker who died during interrogation by British soldiers. Hynes points out that Shiner “doggedly pursued” the case and eventually an inquiry found that Mousa and other prisoners had been subjected to an “appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence”.
Some politicians have lambasted PIL for taking up “spurious” cases. Hynes says, however, that “the problem is sifting the ‘spurious’ from Baha Mousa cases is more difficult than politicians and the many journalists rushing to condemn Shiner might suppose".
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