Behind bars | Democracy, the rule of law and secret files

Until last Monday (24 June) there was only one game in town - the transformative effects of the MoJ's legal aid wrecking ball on the justice system. This Monday, another absorbing topic hit the headlines - the news that undercover police had been set to spy not only on the Lawrence family during the so-called investigation into the murder of their son, but also on Dwayne Brooks, who was with him when he was attacked. As if that was not enough, there was officially sanctioned sniffing around the whole campaign for justice for Stephen, the aim being to find information that might discredit and blame a family and community hunting for justice. On top of that we now know that undercover police officers not only used sexual relationships to get into the heart of protest groups, but that one of them co-wrote the McLibel leaflet which led to the longest libel trial ever, and the energetic pursuit by an enormous corporation of two impoverished defendants, with no legal aid but happily good pro bono legal help.

And we learnt shabby details about a dedicated police unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) whose raison d'être was the enemy within - which includes peaceful campaigners and activists for climate change.

Fair play

The only way of feeling less uneasy with the effect of these disclosures would be to settle them, safely, into the past. That was then, this is now. Things are different today. After all, we have British Justice. British fair play. Community and consensus policing. Our police finest in world. Supremacy of our parliament. Mother of everyone else's Parliament. Democracy. Rule of law. The potency of any such mantra reduces somewhat when we know that although the SDS was disbanded in the oh so distant past (2008) it was reborn as the National Domestic Extremism Unit and continues in fine fettle, with a lively interest in demos, protests and the exercise of our rights of freedom of expression and freedom of speech. The unit has files on thousands of people - nearly 9,000 according to the Guardian - many of whom have no criminal record at all. The significance of that fact is not just that 'innocent' people are targeted, but that the facts recorded about and against them have not been checked by any reliable or public process such as court proceedings. Irony can be a comfort in these times - those thousands of surveillees might feel thus comforted by knowing they are in the same position as the leaders of G8 - although neither rich nor powerful, they all got bugged together. But we all get bugged together: the revelations that GCHQ get record and can retain access to all the information that technology can supply delivers a knock-out blow to any mantra of consolation we can still mutter to ourselves. GCHQ say, as one might expect, that their activities are perfectly legal, signed off in accordance with RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act). Meanwhile, although Lord McNally looks increasingly uncomfortable as he is wheeled out to debate legal aid with the people who know about it - Mr Grayling is presumably too busy reading the 16,000 consultation responses - we must assume the plans to transform us all into lorry drivers are likely to go ahead. It is a grim thought, that in an immediate future where the police might just possibly get out of control, where the government might just possibly accrue and use more and more sophisticated powers, where the rights of the individual might just possibly be entirely disregarded, there would be less - or no - resources available to fight this in the courts.

Fat cat conspiracy

It is of course unpleasant for a government to have to explain itself to a court in a judicial review; very nasty for the poor dears. Their time is taken up by it, and their lawyers are very expensive indeed. It must also be wearisome for Mr Grayling to see the statistics that show approximately 48 per cent of contested trials in the Crown Courts result in acquittals. That has to be too many career criminals conspiring with their fat cat lawyers to evade justice. Cut their fees, limit their market, remove the right to choose, abandon quality - and let British Justice prevail.

All this rather puts one off the law. But then one thinks of those 16,000 responses - the e-petition with nearly 100,000 signatures - the united front between solicitors and barristers. And of one's colleagues, battling for social welfare, convention rights, disability rights, asylum seekers. Of humane judges, fair prosecutors, clients whose lives are turned around. The choice between a practising certificate and an HGV license is still, for now, an easy one to make.