Lawfare and UK Court System

Roger Gale Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I promise that in my brief remarks I will endeavour not to do so. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) for securing this important debate and congratulate him on doing so. This is a significant topic, one with constitutional importance. I wish to confine most of my remarks to the position of the legal system in the UK, bearing in mind that just as living in truth is a great defence against evil, so, in practical terms, is the independence of the judiciary the greatest defence of our constitution. Abuse undoubtedly occurs, and I am grateful to him for highlighting some of the cases. The one case I will refer to is the appalling treatment of our friend and former colleague Charlotte Leslie; this is the worst type of intimidation of a thoroughly good person, as many of us would know, but there are many other such cases. When we deal with that abuse, we have to be wary of not doing so in such a way as to undermine the ability of the courts of this country to act utterly independently. That will sometimes involve the right of an unattractive litigant to seek access to the courts; that is fundamental too. That is probably why it is right that if action has to be taken, this House and Government must do it. We cannot place the judiciary in the invidious position of having to make judgments as to the political acceptability or otherwise of those who might seek to bring a claim before the courts—provided, of course, that there is at least a prima facie legal basis to bring the claim in the first place.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) mentioned some sensible measures that we might take to enable courts to protect themselves. The anti-SLAPP law is worthy of consideration because it could involve an early strike-out mechanism that would speed up the means of dealing with cases without any substantive merit that have clearly been brought for the purposes of intimidation through a war of attrition.

It is useful to know that many lawyers and judges have raised concerns about the matter. Only at the end of last year, there was a very useful conference in which it was considered by the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, which is chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Neuberger, the former President of the Supreme Court. The panel, of which Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws is also a member, recommended that the Ministry of Justice move towards a consultation on anti-SLAPP laws, perhaps taking up some of the best practice found in the States. We do not have to take up all suggestions—I would have some concerns about the practical impact of the defamation fund suggested by President Biden—but other issues that have been raised are well worthy of consideration.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is infinitely more expert than I am in these matters, but the point has been raised very clearly indeed on a couple of occasions that the regulatory bodies dealing with these law firms appear unwilling or unable to take any action. Can he suggest any way in which the law firms themselves can be brought to heel?

[Sir Robert Neill]

Let us be very clear: there are very significant regulations relating to the conduct of law firms in the United Kingdom. There are two separate regulatory regimes. Very properly, there are much greater checks in place on money laundering and source of funds for the solicitors profession, which handles client money, than for the Bar, which does not; it acts on the instructions that come via its professional client, the solicitors. That distinction is important, and I will digress briefly to deal with it.

We have to bear in mind that one of the key strengths of the independent Bar in England and Wales, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland is that barristers operate on the cab rank rule: if they hold themselves out as having expertise in a particular field of law and are available to take on a case when a proper fee is offered, they are professionally obliged to do so, regardless of their opinion of the client. That is utterly fundamental. Barristers do not and should not have the luxury of making moral choices about the people for whom they act; that is the essence of independence and objectivity at the Bar.

[Sir Robert Neill]

If Mr Tomlinson practises in that field, it is open to him to take those cases—I have to say that bluntly to my hon. Friend. It would be a very dangerous thing if Parliament ever sought to interfere with the rights of any lawyer in respect of which clients they do or not take on. That would be a very dangerous and slippery slope; actually, it would go in the direction of the jurisdictions that we are rightly criticising in this debate.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I am sorry to press my hon. Friend on the point, but is there also a requirement on the law firm—the practice or the man—to establish the source of the funding that is being used to persecute people?

[Sir Robert Neill]

Absolutely. The regulations dealing with the solicitors profession have very considerable requirements to track the source of funds. They apply from the basic level of a conveyancing transaction, all the way up to funding for the most complex litigation. We should not mischaracterise the position by saying that there is a high level of cynicism in the legal profession; there is not, and I do not believe that there is a failure of regulation either.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I shall be very brief because many of the points I intended to make have been eloquently expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and indeed by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne).

We have come a long way since the late Robert Maxwell sought to persecute Private Eye through his bank account. We are now dealing with a wholly different scale of abuse, and it is saddening to hear the extent to which London has now become perhaps the money laundering capital of the world. We know—because we do know—that there is investment in football clubs, property and businesses that is bought by dirty money, and we have a very fair idea of where that dirty money has come from. It comes not only from the Russian Federation but from Azerbaijan, other countries of the former Soviet Union, and countries in the middle east; it is the oligarchy—the kleptosphere as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill said.

Having spent, as others have, some time with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I am in no doubt of the extent of this influence, and, more importantly, of the direct link between those carrying the money bags and Putin’s Kremlin, and that is unacceptable in a civilised society. It is a disgrace that there are law firms in London aiding and abetting those seeking to use the law to suppress the voice of truth, which is why I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) to what extent those in the legal profession take trouble to try to identify the source of the money they are being paid with. I cannot help but feel that the regulatory bodies of the solicitor profession and the Bar need to ask some rather more searching questions.

The convention on human rights is founded on the principles of free speech, a free press and free democracy. If we allow our country to be used as a base to suppress free speech, we will be on a very slippery path. All I want to say to Front Benchers is that the case has been made and the Minister has heard that. We cannot allow this to go on any longer. We have to take action to ensure that anti-SLAPP laws are introduced, that proper controls are exercised to prevent the abuse of our courts and to try to protect those who seek to investigate and then publish the truth.