Arrogance Update

Dear Diary,

I have previously reported on the LSC’s belief that it had won a case, when in actual fact it had lost. Whether that inability to recognise a result causes concern is moot. It may be better that the LSC believes that its bottom is halfway up its arm: less damage might then be done when it attempts to crap on the professions.

Now the Court of Appeal has both backed Beatson J’s initial declaration against the LSC and allowed the Law Society’s appeal against the declaration he did not make. For the benefit of the Commissioners, who have spent our money in pursuit of the opposite result, one spells this outcome L - O - S - T.

The Lazy, Stupid and Complacent has responded, with a press release. Instead of attempting to work within the Judgment, the LSC whinges about the Court’s failure to tell it precisely what it could and could not do. One would have thought that a body charged with administering the funds for justice might be able to work out what is and is not lawful all by itself. The LSC takes the view that it is preferable to respond in ill-tempered fashion, threatening “to terminate and re-tender for contracts much more frequently than in the past”. As the LSC well knows, that simply involves providers of services to the public in more expense, upset and bureaucracy. The attitude is deplorable, the more so from an organisation involved with the legal system.

In another development I have already remarked upon, the LSC spent our money allowing a Palestinian to challenge alleged arms-sales to Israel from this country. Quite why a political question was funded as a legal challenge has not been explained. The claim failed, as it was bound to do, on the precise basis that this was a matter for Parliament. Oddly enough, whilst the website of PIL - the law firm who incurred the expenditure - trumpets the personal achievements of one Phil Shiner, it seems to have no information about this particular loser. Curiouser and Curiouser, as Alice appropriately remarked when she had grown so tall that she could no longer see her own feet.

Dear Diary, Alice’s disproportionate dimensions are an apposite comment on the LSC and those who it allows to spend our money. It would be interesting to know how much money was spent on PIL’s challenge and the LSC’s attempt to impose a unilaterally variable contract. I do not suppose we ever will. Meanwhile, children with special needs are denied funding to challenge a refusal to assist them. It is hardly justice.