How did the English judiciary stoop so low? | Nick Cohen

Aa tourists legal mock our legal system

The UK may be "entered into a double-dip recession," gushes the last number

Business Legal

, a magazine for corporate lawyers "But the most important companies in the United Kingdom the law continue to grow and the trend breaks record profits."

They do. The upper end of the law is too heavy with money. Lawyer Jonathan Sumption QC won the greatest ever when he took a ratio of 5 million pounds for the representation of Roman Abramovich in his fight with Boris Berezovsky. The gains of the richest 100 law firms in London affected more than 5 billion for the first time last year. The richest seven paid its members more than £ 1 million each.

second homes in Tuscany, in the Chianti flows because the oligarchs and corporations can not get enough of the English legal system.

speaking last year at Clifford Chance, whose members have contributed £ 1.3 billion in 2011, then Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke has admitted that legal trade "felt like a kind Cinderella neglect their treatment by the government "- a strange description to use when members of law firms in the city like anyone as much as the ugly sisters, but let it go. The coalition now recognizes money to litigation and legal services wanted to push English in emerging markets. "The United Kingdom is no longer able to boast of being the world's workshop," said Clarke. "But the UK can be an advocate for the world." In 1990 and 2000, the Government believes that financial services offering post-industrial future for Britain. now it is considered that the legal services as our Savior.

Ministers

embodies the ambition to build Rolls, which winds like a luxury liner near Fetter Lane in the city. The new home of the commercial courts has nothing to fustiness of the old court, in the Strand High Gothic. Opened last year, at a cost of £ 300 million, it is the seat of a technology company in the fashion of glass and steel, and with a central atrium where a spiral staircase twists in sky

The Ministry of Justice should help Britain become the "largest specialist center for the resolution of financial, business and property litigation anywhere in the world," and in this perspective, it seems to oppose it. I have many criticisms of the judiciary, but I never considered the idea that the English judge take a bribe or succumb to the pressures of the state. Can not say the same for judges, Moscow, New Delhi and Beijing. The incorruptibility of the judiciary and the work ethic of lawyers to ensure that commercial disputes are made in London than in any other city in the world. And of course, all it takes to income tax counters lawyers deign happen.

"Wimbledonisation" is a nasty business writers in the long term to achieve these occasions. Andy Murray hand, we do not have great tennis players, they say, but in business, as in sports, we can still hold the best foreign players.

However, there are signs that this trend in English law will also be a big disappointment because it was in English finance. Even lawyers Abramovich agreed that skeptics might wonder why a dispute over the spoils of the former Soviet empire had to do with us.

• The British taxpayer sees no direct benefit. Mrs Justice Gloster began hearing the case Abramovich, Oct. 3, 2011. The process continued until 21 December 2011. It considers its verdict until August 31, 2012, and have yet to spend months writing his judgment.
• For this service, public money received almost nothing. High Court and Court of Appeals users to pay £ 1090 for a hearing test, regardless of its length. The Ministry of Justice has proposed last year that would raise the price of the High Court and Court of Appeal cases that last more than 10 days £ 10,900, but why not cover the cost of a new battle between oligarchs and, in any case, nothing has been done.

as the National Theatre and the House of Windsor, the law is subsidized by taxpayers, because it brings tourists, but here's the richest tourists on the planet who can afford to pay their own way .

Beyond

newspaper is an existential question: which is the law? Sitting in London, not too far-fetched to imagine that the legal system of England and Wales to dispose of the population of England and Wales.

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