mrabody

Well, last time I checked, UKIP is not chock full of lawyers so surely there is room for one or two of us. Indeed, I think we need a positive discrimination program for lawyers as our party is so unrepresentative in this regard.

douglas denny

That's why we in UKIP are so much better than the rest .......... !
Higher up the scale in purity levels .....

DED

Aardvark

How is democracy undermined by lawyers? There is not a single recent Act of parliament that wasn't ultimately drafted by lawyers. If you do away with lawyers who will draft statutes? If the statute isn't drafted by lawyers it will be interpreted in the courts by them. The badly drafted statutes are the ones where lawyers make real money.

Everybody thinks they can do a lawyer's job and they frequently **** up. Lawyers make more money out of wills that they don't draft than out of wills that they do draft as people write in things that are not practical and then the families fight them in the courts. My daughter, temporarily on benefits, is paying calendar month rent on her house even though she agreed verbally to 28 day months. The contract was downloaded from the Internet by the putative landlady and included an unenforceable term (the law had changed and she relies on a repealed statute) and reference to calendar months. The benefits people look at the signed contract and only pay what is agreed in writing. The girl, who's a bit thick, but inherited a house, thought she'd save money by not using a lawyer and is out of pocket to hundreds of pounds.

If twizzel and aarable had spent a few quid getting a legal opinion they could have saved a lot of grief and wouldn't have humiliated the Eurosceptic movement by telling everyone that they were going to prosecute retired ministers for a time barred offence. aarable would also have been told that you can't prosecute dead people.

The reason Parliament is stuffed full of lawyers is that the sort of people who are interested in studying laws become the sort of people who would like to change them. If you want to change laws it is an act of supreme faith to join UKIP and hope to get into the HoC. Ambitious lawyers join winning parties. If UKIP starts to do well the lawyers will join in droves, but nobody with legal qualifications wants to go near people who are obsessed with enforcing Magna Carta, repealed treason laws and the Bill of Rights.

__________________
When in Woking do as the Wokes do.

"I do not wish to form my opinions by thoughtlessly quoting others; I wish others to support their opinions by sensibly quoting me." Paul Wesson (Aardvark) 13th April 2008

douglas denny

How is democracy undermined by lawyers?

Because:-

1) At a high level: (government) they are the ones (as you point out) drafting the rules regulations and laws.

That corrupt lawyers can screw up the whole democratic system is illustrated probably best of all by the ex-Prime Minister Bliar (no doubt assisted in the background by that harridan wife Cherie - another of that ilk) and his efforts over thirteen years.
Also illustrated by the highest lawyer in the land (NO LESS) - the Attorney General who stops the legal process into investigation of the British Aerospace bribes in the Al Yamaman case on spurious grounds quite obviously on the orders of Bliar and the Saudis.

2) They have the knowledge of how to draft it in a manner to suit themselves (or their Machiavellian masters) in obtaining advantage - as with all the corrupt dealings with MPs expenses for example; or changing the goalposts to suit: like exempting Formula 1 racing from anti-smoking advertising laws (and receiving big back-handers in the background in the form of brown paper envelopes perhaps? ...)

3) They know how to get into the positions of power to exercise that power.

The corrupt, especially the clever corrupt, 'know the ropes' of how to position themselves into positions where they can exercise personal advantage. I have seen it widespread in Portsmouth City Council when a councillor in the 1980s. I ahve no doubt whatever it goes on at all levels.

4) if they are predisposed to take advantage, they know how to do so without being found out; or it being very unlikely to be found out. ....Though that enterprise patently goes wrong very often as we read in the newspapers constantly as they are held to account for misappropriation of clients funds/investments/wills deeds to their houses etc).


You make the point Ardie that we cannot do without lawyers in society.
I agree.
They are a necessity: indeed they are........ like sewers ... and they deal in the same material.


Regards,
Douglas.