Immigration lawyers allegedly seeking to make money from legal aid have been criticised for obstructing lawful attempts to remove migrants who should not be in the UK, amid the government’s call for tougher measures to deal with a recent surge in illegal immigrants to the UK in 2020.
The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel have been accused of endangering the personal safety of those working in the justice system through their allegedly “abusive attacks” on the profession and a group of legal luminaries are demanding that they should apologise, reports The Guardian.
Johnson and Patel are also slammed for allegedly displaying “hostility” towards lawyers and undermining the “rule of law”, in a letter signed by more than 800 former judges and senior legal figures, including three former justices of the UK supreme court, five retired appeal court judges, three former high court judges, and the lawyer heads of four Oxford University colleges.
The letter states the deep concern at “attacks, made by the home secretary and echoed by the prime minister”, on lawyers “seeking to hold the government to the law”.
The former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald QC voiced his support for those who signed the letter, saying:
The former Supreme Court justice Lord Dyson was quoted by The Guardian as denouncing the “inflammatory language” resorted to by Patel and Johnson.
In response, a government spokesperson was quoted as saying:
The letter came as a man armed with a knife was earlier accused of carrying out a racist attack at a firm of immigration lawyers.
Cavan Medlock, 28, had allegedly visited the offices of Duncan Lewis Solicitors in Harrow and threatened to kill a member of staff in September. He reportedly blamed lawyers at the firm for preventing the removal of immigrants from the UK.
‘Rhetorical Attacks’
The developments follow a spate of rhetorical verbal barrages aimed at the legal profession by Johnson and Patel.
Thus, an animated clip blaming “activist lawyers” for frustrating the Home Office’s efforts to deport people with no legal right to remain in the UK was posted on its Twitter feed in August, using the phrase “activist lawyers”.
The video said the current asylum system was “open to abuse”, allowing lawyers to “delay and disrupt returns” of people. The footage was later removed.
The Home Office had confirmed that a charter flight scheduled to due to depart to Spain carrying asylum seekers who entered the UK on small boats had been cancelled, reportedly amid a high number of legal challenges.
In early October, the Home Secretary echoed the stance at the Conservative party conference.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson fed into the rhetoric with his conference speech, vowing to prevent “the whole criminal justice system from being hamstrung by what the home secretary would doubtless – and rightly – call the lefty human rights lawyers, and other do-gooders”.
Johnson has been urging tougher measures to deal with the spike in illegal immigrants crossing the Channel into Britain in small boats in 2020.
A Home Office spokesperson underscored in a statement that violence against lawyers was “utterly unacceptable”, adding:
Netizens weighed in on the letter and the accusations aimed at Boris Johnson and Priti Patel. Some deplored blatant lack of “respect for UK rule of law”.
Some netizens adopted a different stance, calling on the politicians “not to apologise”.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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