How rule of law gave way to rule by greedy lawyers

From: Terry Morrell, Prunus Avenue, Willerby.

I WELL recall in the late 1940s and 1950s reading reports of the sardonic comments from the two renowned stipendiary magistrates who sat in Hull handing out suitable instant justice to local miscreants.

Messrs MacDonald and O’Sullivan invariably responded with equal promptness and fairness, usually the very next morning after the event which had brought the individual to their attention.

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However, as David Blunkett so aptly phrased it in his article (Yorkshire Post, May 21), the legal system has been hi-jacked by the greedy lawyers.

Well, maybe he did not use those exact words, but anyone with a the slightest ability to realise what has happened over the years will realise that the legal profession established themselves in Parliament and changed the laws so that it provided them and their heirs with a very good living.

Of course, they sold it to Joe Public as a sure method of “everyone getting a fair crack of the law”.

Those nasty stipendiary magistrates had been sending burglars and their kind off to prison without a fair trial, or should that have been the opportunity of a clever lawyer to get them off through loop hole in the law? We have come a long way at a very expensive price and not to mention the provision of an excellent guaranteed living for legal criminals.

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Unfortunately, we do not have a Parliamentarian capable or willing to redress this abominable situation. Maybe we need a clever lawyer?

From: Gerald Hodgson, Spennithorne, Leyburn.

I HAVE long felt the court system to be dysfunctional. One reads frequently of apparently straightforward cases which take days, even weeks, and cost huge sums of money. However, I was unprepared for the horrifying tale of inefficiency and waste so graphically described by David Blunkett in his account of his jury service (Yorkshire Post, May 21).

For centuries, the law has been manipulated to the benefit of the legal profession who, in the past, dominated Parliament.

I anticipate that any suggestion of streamlining the system will be met with cries of horror by “m’learned friends” who will say that speeding up the process would be damaging to justice. I suggest that the present situation, which excludes all but the very rich or the very poor (on legal aid) means that justice is denied to many people.

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Every other institution, organisation and business in the land has to strive for efficiency. There is no reason why the law should not do the same. I suggest that it is high time an appropriate body, perhaps a Royal Commission, looked at the way the law, and in particular the courts, operate.

It is important that such a body includes a majority of non- lawyers or the profession will simply close ranks. Ignore the cries that non-lawyers will not understand the issues. The law, important though it is, is not rocket science and an intelligent group of non-lawyers is best placed to take a dispassionate view of these important matters.