Austerity a challenge to rule of law says Nobel prizewinner
Nobel economics laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz yesterday urged lawyers worldwide to help safeguard access to justice in the face of deep cuts to state aid for legal representation.
'Inequality was growing before the financial crisis and has been exacerbated by it,' he told thousands of lawyers gathered in Dublin for this year's International Bar Association conference. 'In 2010, 93% of growth went to the top 1% - many of you in this room,' he added. Median full-time male wages in the US are back to 1968 levels and 'economic inequality leads to political inequality'.
The 'challenge for the legal profession', said Stiglitz (pictured), alluding to legal aid cuts, is to ensure 'the promise of justice for all' does not become 'justice for those that can afford it'.
Stiglitz, former chief economist and vice president of the World Bank, is a prolific author and arch-critic of the management of globalisation and 'free-market fundamentalism'. He opened this year's event with a stark warning that governments have misdiagnosed what is wrong with Europe's economy and that austerity will not solve the crisis.
He advocates further fiscal stimulus, noting that in the US the government can borrow at negative real interest rates.
'The only positive about Europe is that its plight makes Americans think "things could be worse",' he said. Europe's debt as a percentage of GDP before the crisis was lower than the US and only Greece of the eurozone countries could rightly be accused of profligacy, he said. Because the problem was misdiagnosed as overspending, the prescription is austerity, which Stiglitz said has 'almost never worked'.
He added: 'It was tried in 1929, the International Monetary Fund tried it in Asia and Latin America. Each time it succeeded in turning downturns into recessions, recessions into depressions.'
The eurozone is fundamentally flawed because it was based on a political not economic model, said Stiglitz. Structural change is required but he doubts the political will is there to achieve this. Calling for a common banking system with deposit guarantees and the mutualisation of debt, he stressed that at present banks are only as strong as the governments that prop them up. Money flows out where governments are weak, weakening economies such as Spain further.
He said there needs to be 'more or less Europe', the preferred option being that Germany leaves, though he does not expect this to happen. The alternative, a disorderly breakup of the 17-nation eurozone, would lead to a 'boom for the legal profession', he joked, as lawyers dealt with a rash of bankruptcies and restructuring of contracts.
'Europe is going to face turmoil whichever direction it takes,' he concluded.
Comments
This is the type of noble
This is the type of noble debate the Law Society should be engaged not lecturing solicitors on the need to be good diversifiers
Warnings from history ?
I suggest that we are departing the modern era when the Rule of Law and Freedom can be mutually (and usually smugly) identified with Capitalism. Obviously the "Communist" experiments were sadly lacking as a credible alternative, but an alternative should nonetheless be sought to stop us sleepwalking back into a form of barbarism whereby the Poor are just there to be ignored (copyright Mr. Romney) and/or oppressed.
Speak up!
Why are the best comments so often anonymous? Stand up and be counted, or Mr Stiglitz will be disappointed!
Poor are there just to be ignored
When the jungle is on fire, its everyone for themselves.
Does anyone for a minute think that the plight of the poor, vulnerable and needy will even begin to outweigh the interests of the rich, corporate giants and aristocrats of the world??
Don't live in a dream, reality is a different ball game.
Austerity a challenge to the rule of law says Nobel prizewinner
The Legal Aid Act 1949 provided equal access to social justice regardless of wealth. It was a cornerstone of the welfare state. The latest funding cuts will mean that most citizens will no longer have a remedy against abuses of power by landlords, employers and the agencies of the state like the police and all levels of government. We are seeing a return to the bad old days when, in cases of injustice, the people with the most money win. The powerful will no longer have the incentive to behave lawfully because, without citizens having access to justice, they will be accountable to no-one. With nowhere else to turn aggrieved citizens will seek self-help remedies outside the legal system and this could ultimately lead to a breakdown in the rule of law.
Consultation on Employment Tribunals
Employment Tribunal claims are a particular area of government focus at present, and other solicitors may wish to inform themselves further on the issue of access to justice in relation to rights at work.
The consultation on Employment Tribunal fees has closed, but there is a curent consultation on Employment Tribunal rules which others may wish to be aware of:
http://bis.ecgroup.net/Publications/EmploymentMatters/EmploymentConsultations/121039.aspx
Legal Aid
In the UK as Law has become increasingly inefficient with escalating costs delivering injustice through its exclusion of the majority.
Legal aid has increasingly removed separation between the Executive and the Judiciary its reduction may improve justice.
Austerity
The Professor is of course right to call to arms the legal profession to help the most vulnerable in our society, after all most of us go into the legal profession to help others rather than to enrich ourselves. The question than becomes how to we achieve the goals of universal access to the law even at hard times. How do we achieve the goals of weathering the economic hardship which impacts on state funding and individual income. The answer to me is simple, when it rains we all put up the umbrella.
By analogy, what this calls for is a sense of togetherness, fighting war of economic downturn on all fronts. We heed and draw lessons from the past economic theories of Keynes but so as not permit the state to become too dominant force, ensure that theory adopted by Hayek is one where people become the driving force and a means of production with the state taking an active stake and not one of lassisez faire; ensure that there is a fair distribution of wealth as pronounced by Marx but not one that encourages individual greed for increased profits at the risk to others. In short let us examine all these theories and put it to practical use by finding the middle ground that appeals to all our endevaours.
In respect to the legal profession, there is so much we can do together rather than waiting for the state to act. If we ensure that all sections of the legal community play a part then there is nothing we cannot achieve, let us think only of possibilities and not the impossibilities. In courts. we need to utlise all our resources to help those who would be otherwise be at a disadvantage the public, private and voluntary sectors must all come together and play its part by sharing, accommodating and offering its services whether this be for paid, part or pro- bono every little counts as they say. Every crises calls for a unified response, so to the legal profession we call for some equilibrium.
Legal Aid
I don't do legal aid, never have and never will, but one should be clear that many governments even in the UK have not wanted to see justice for all - since it is so often the governments that are the source of injustice. This government would for example be delighted to see no-one who needed it able to enforce (so far as such enforcement is in legal truth possible) the Human Rights Act, no recipient of benefits able to challenge injustice in the withdrawal of benefits, no provider of entertainment able to challenge licensing restrictions. The list is endless.
PS
Of course the Tesco-isation of legal practice has the same objective.
With the Law Society hellbent
With the Law Society hellbent on looking inwards or otherwise enabling its power hungry offspring the SRA to punish firms of solicitors for the minutest infraction of outcomes based rules, who will engage in this noble debate?
Possibly once the Law Society has fractured, real lawyers will emerge from the ruins to restore the image of a demoralised and battered legal profession.
Change is coming
Legal Aid
Capitalism is a 300 year old historical phenomena which appears to be collapsing in on itself.
Today in the West we in a reactionary phase from the viewpoint of the majority who find social protection torn away and increasing economic insecurity.
It is doubtful that monoploy capitalism can break out of the limits it now confronts other than making life hell for many people. If that is so, then we have find a progressive alternative that meets the basic needs of the majority: that is likely to be some form of socialism and a centrally planned economy. Otherwise, we may be facing social breakdown- witness Haiti, Greece and any number of other failing states- of which the end of legal aid is but a small precursor.