Stephen Lawrence lawyer: I wouldn't take case with today's legal-aid cuts

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/mar/25/stephen-lawrence-lawyer-legal-aid-cuts-imran-khan

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The lawyer who acted for Stephen Lawrence's family said he would have been reluctant to take on the family's fight for justice if it had come to him once the government's legal aid cuts had gone through.

Imran Khan warned that many families facing injustice are already engaged in a battle to secure representation because lawyers cannot afford to take on expensive, unpredictable, open-ended cases.

The human rights solicitor said cuts in funding already meant: "I am working twice as hard as I used to with half or a third of the money."

He added: "Not to put too dramatic a point on it; if the Lawrence case landed on my desk today I wouldn't be able to take it. There are not enough hours to be able to make enough money on legal aid to be able to survive."

On 1 April the Ministry of Justice will implement a controversial £215m cut in criminal legal aid to reduce the overall costs, the prospect of which has seen the courts disrupted through a series of strikes.

Khan helped the Lawrences pro bono, but says he could not afford to in future. Such things now seem a luxury, he said. "It is my biggest regret that I know there are cases out there and I have to have conversations with families and say you deserve better, but I can't help you.

"And they then think that I am now some big shot lawyer who doesn't care when nothing could be further from the truth. If there are people who have abused the system, that doesn't mean you have to change the system and affect everybody. Go after those who abused it."

Khan warned this scale of cuts will affect everybody. "What will happen is that society won't get the benefit of those cases where there is such an injustice. No lawyer will take it on. I can't imagine there is going to be another Lawrence case for a long time - if ever."

However, the lawyer, who first represented the family of the murdered teenager 21 years ago, praised the home secretary Theresa May's handling of corruption allegations relating to the police investigation into the Lawrence murder.

In a wide-ranging interview in G2, he described his shock at the conclusions of this month's Ellison report into undercover policing and corruption, and May's willingness to act promptly. She ordered a judge-led public inquiry after Ellison found that a police officer had spied on the Lawrence family.

"It was an OMG moment for her. I expected something more mealy mouthed but it wasn't. It was quite a performance," Khan said.

Speaking to the Guardian, Khan also criticised the government's implacable opposition to the Human Rights Act and warned that it risks creating a new generation of disgruntled young Muslims over perceived double standards in Syria.

"The worst thing this government could do is abolish the Human Rights Act. The Lawrences could have got justice in 1993 had it been in force at the time by saying we need a public inquiry because there was a right to life," the laywer said.

There was an immediate impact when it came into force in 2000, Khan observed. "I see the next big challenge as defending human rights in this country because without it all the gains we have made and the language that we speak will completely change."

Khan said there was growing anger that a government that opposes the Assad regime in Syria should prosecute young Muslims who travel there to fight it. Ministers have also become over zealous in the so called war on terror, says Khan. "It has gone too far from protecting society to curtailing civil liberties. Look at the three students in Bradford jailed for having ideological material on their computers. they were jailed for up to three years for material that was ideological; that wasn't extremist. That was state power at its most draconian."