Sancho at the moment as a person accused of crime and presumed to be innocent you get to chose your lawyer . At the moment that lawyer has no financial interest in forcing you to plead guilty . If you think either of those points are a good thing sign the petition .
Thanks junkyard - I appreciate your signing and even more so your attempt to bring light to the somewhat muddy and unclear thinking displayed by Sancho.
For what it's worth I think the current system has many, many faults (not least of which is the very poor level of pay when compared to what I earn from private client legal work, but that is beside the point. This is about wholesale removal of people's rights to access representation).
But just because the current system has very real problems, that's not a reason to implement something which I believe is fundamentally wrong in principle and in practice.
Again, thank you for signing.
I've never a met a solicitor that I'd piss on if they were on fire
I'm a police officer who's "crossed swords" with plenty of solicitors and legal reps, in fact I'm now a custody sergeant so handling them is my bread and butter. Like any collective there are good and bad but the majority of the ones I've met and dealt with are decent people doing something for the right reasons (which isn't money).
Plenty of innocent people get arrested as at the time it was reasonable to suspect them of committing an offence. there but for the grace of god and all that.
Do you want the likes of G4S representing you as they offered to do it for less money than anyone else?
Junkyard, I've got a PhD; education vs income is a pointless argument. Call-me-Dave seems to think we are all "striving" to earn as much as possible but genuinely I dont know anyone who has chosen a career (as opposed to one employer over another within a field) due to the pay available.
Criminals with 100's of convictions still getting legal aid.
Because ([b]and this is a copper writing this[/b]) sometimes they aren't guilty of the offence for which they've been arrested? Plenty of prolific offenders, say burglars, will be arrested because the location, M.O etc of the offence matches their previous. We have 3 burglars in my city who all look alike and live in the same area, they were forever being arrested for "each other"s offences where a suspect has been seen and described. Should the innocent 2 out of the 3 be denied legal advice on the grounds theyve been guilty in the past?!
Pah!
You should be out arresting real criminals, like that blokes wife who made him go out when he was tired, or those knobbers who are going to destroy the timeline of Dr Who.
..or hora.
Do you want the likes of G4S representing you as they offered to do it for less money than anyone else?
Surely no one wants this
Junkyard, I've got a PhD; education vs income is a pointless argument.
I was not trying that tbh I was trying the legal profession get paid too much and all access to legal redress is prohibitively expensive line
I suspect we would have the same issue [ costs]if say healthcare or education was not nationalised
the costs charged are part of the problem
Junkyard thanks for signing. Do you really believe that legal aid is prohibitively expensive my last annual service on my Panda cost more than I get paid to do a trial in the magistrates court . We spend on legal aid a fraction of what was spent to bail out the bankers and ensure they could keep paying themselves bonuses.
It depends it is like the NHS if it was all private with NHS as a fee then it would IMHO cost more
As I siad I would compel you all to do legal aid work
I assume [ it must be obvious I am no expert] that not all the legal profession do it
I assume if you can command high fees [ privately] then you cut your cloth to this - large offices in the posh parts of towns for example.
it may be more cost effective to compel you to all do x hours per week/ year for x fee
then again I think almost every problem can be solved by the state running it
OH yes others are milking the system for more fr sure and contribute far less to society
