Lobby bill and judicial review change threaten democratic rights

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/18/lobby-bill-judicial-review-rights

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Polly Toynbee is right to draw attention to the silence of the press on the lobbying bill (18 October). But that is hardly surprising given that the press has complete immunity; it will be free to spend as much as it likes promoting its proprietors' corporate agenda. This leaves Murdoch, Rothermere and the others free to occupy an even more central part in the next election: the fewer voices in the campaign, the more they will dominate.

This, however, may be the undoing of the restrictions. In 1998, the European court of human rights struck down tight spending limits on how much charities and others could spend to support or oppose parliamentary candidates. As a result, the law was changed in 2000 to increase the limit. One of the reasons for the court's decision was that there were no comparable restrictions on the press, which was free with impunity to campaign for or against anyone it liked. This is not to advocate the extension of the lobbying bill to the press, or to say that the European court would accept such a gag on free speech. But it is to say that what is good for Murdoch and Rothermere is good for Oxfam and Unite, and that by denying to others what it allows to the corporations that run the newspapers, the government may have left itself vulnerable to another legal challenge. It is a curious kind of liberal democracy that requires legal action to defend free speech at an election. Professor KD Ewing Institute of Employment Rights

• The deadline for response to proposals for reform of judicial review is 1 November. In these proposals, there is an emphasis on who should be allowed to bring a claim, rather than, as at present, on the importance of remedying public law wrongs. Charities and NGOs would be prevented from bringing a claim if they could not show they had a direct interest in the outcome and, if such organisations did take a case and lost, they would have to pay the defendant's costs. Third parties who make expert interventions would be deterred by the increased financial costs of intervening and lawyers would be heavily penalised for bringing "weak" cases to court.

Public challenges are vital to a democracy: the main function of judicial review is to prevent the abuse of public power. But under these proposals, individuals will no longer be able to challenge wide-ranging policy; public interest cases will cease. They are also an attack on the poor. Because of the prohibitive financial risks, charities and NGOs will be excluded from bringing litigation, lawyers will be discouraged from acting on behalf of individuals who have no money and the voice of disadvantaged groups will not be heard. Combined with the cuts in legal aid we are witnessing a deep shift away from a society based on the common good to one where justice is subverted in favour of economic advantage. Fleur Houston Churches Refugee Network

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