John Howell
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Public Legal Education
John Howell Excerpts(5 years, 12 months ago)
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Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered public legal education.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.
I rise today to open the debate on public legal education with the aim of highlighting its importance and supporting its expansion, so that it reaches as many communities across the country as possible. It is great to see the Solicitor General in his place today, knowing how passionate he is about this cause. His enthusiasm and support are especially vital, since successfully reaching as many communities as possible will take a lot of engagement on his part with the voluntary sector and the legal professions, which must themselves drive PLE. Before I get into the substance of the debate, I place on the record my thanks to voluntary organisations such as Young Citizens—formally the Citizenship Foundation—and the Legal Education Foundation, and, of course, to the House of Commons Library for the briefings with which they provided me ahead of this debate.
I believe we should start from first principles, for Her Majesty’s Government’s first duty, above all else, is to keep its citizens and our country safe from harm—safe from those who wish to do us harm, both within and outwith. To that end, just as in Burke’s unwritten social contract between the living, those who have been and those who are yet to come, the Government form an unwritten contract with the population as a whole. In that contract, in exchange for their security and safety, the public agree to follow the rule of law.
The rule of law is one of those four fundamentals, alongside democracy, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those of all faiths or none, that are so crucial and central to our lives. It is described by the World Justice Project as,
“clear, publicised, stable and just”
laws that,
“are applied evenly; and protect fundamental rights, including the security of persons and property”.
An important part of that is the word “publicised”; not only must the great British public respect the law, but they must know it and they must understand it. They must understand their rights and, crucially, their responsibilities.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Does he agree that it is not just those rights that we need to educate people about? The courts are changing. We have online courts and we have online divorces, because of changes that are occurring in the Ministry of Justice. All of that plays to the strengths of young people. I wonder whether we ought to teach them how to access that justice, as well as what that justice is.
Mr Jayawardena
My hon. Friend makes an important point on how the justice system continues to evolve and how young people must be taught about all facets of the legal system, some of which I will deal with later. Indeed, in today’s increasingly complex society it is more vital than ever to equip as many people as possible—young and old—with at least some basic knowledge about our legal system and their legal responsibilities as well as their rights.