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Here to act, not to judge (Pt 2)

12 November 2021 / Theo Huckle KC
Issue: 7956 / Categories: Opinion , Profession
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What price justice? In a second update on the parlous state of our justice system, Theo Huckle QC explains why all of our people’s legal rights should be real and enforceable

In the first part of this article I referred to a commentary quotation about Rudy Giuliani and his appearances for former President Trump to challenge electoral results in last Autumn’s US Presidential race: ‘A lawyer may have any old client, but a lawyer cannot tell the court any old thing. Even a lawyer as partisan as Rudy Giuliani could not bring himself to mislead a court by alleging electoral fraud for his client Donald Trump, though both freely made such allegations outside of the courtroom,’ (Prospect, ‘Should a lawyer ever refuse to act in an unpleasant case?’, David Allen Green, April 2021).

I made it clear that deliberate misrepresentation of any form by a lawyer is an abomination, that the common suggestion that lawyers ‘lie’ on behalf of their clients is anathema

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The Solicitors Act 1974 may still underpin legal regulation, but its age is increasingly showing. Writing in NLJ this week, Victoria Morrison-Hughes of the Association of Costs Lawyers argues that the Act is ‘out of step with modern consumer law’ and actively deters fairness
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