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Khan pledges to scrap JR changes
Labour would reverse the coalition’s judicial review reforms, which are being driven by ideological rather than budgetary reasons, shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan told the audience at the launch of Unite the Union’s ‘Magna Carta Today?’ report.
‘If they could abolish judicial review, they would. They can’t, so they are changing the rules,’ said Khan. He added that the government department with the most successful challenges against it was the Ministry of Justice.
Khan said there was a school of thought that the current and former Lord Chancellors ‘are decent people, just doing what they were told to do in reducing their budgets’. He continued: ‘The other school of thought, which I subscribe to, is that Ken Clarke and Chris Grayling are not decent people.’
It is vital that the Lord Chancellor is someone who ‘understands the importance of the rule of law and the presumption of innocence’.
As well as reforming judicial review, Labour would axe two-tier contracts for criminal work, and work with those in the legal aid sector to review the impact of the cuts.
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Khan: ‘vital importance of rule of law’
Unlike the Conservatives, Labour ‘won’t walk away from the Human Rights Act’; it will extend freedom of information laws, and also look at rising court fees. A Labour government would remove blocks to legal aid for domestic violence cases: ‘I have spoken to lawyers where women have come into their offices. When they have explained the evidence they will need to provide to get legal aid, they have left and never come back again.’
IT has a role to play in delivering services, he said, adding: ‘I say this as the son of immigrants, some people aren’t confident speaking on the phone.’
Khan, who was a partner at the civil liberties firm Christian Khan before entering politics, revealed that solicitor Jane Deighton, who was in the audience, ‘was a role model and mentor to me when I was a baby lawyer’.