“Unless you have access to legal advice for poorer people,
you have not got the rule of law. We are at risk of denying access to justice,
and that damages the rule of law. People end up being disillusioned with
government and the whole democratic system. You get more and more people who
don’t believe in the government we have, which is very undermining, or who end
up taking the law into their own hands, or a bit of both, which is not good for
us, nor for the country. The two most important functions of government are to
protect the country from invasion and attack from abroad and to ensure the rule
of law at home. Unless you do those two things you might as well not bother
with welfare, education, health and housing because it’s not a country worth
living in. Access to justice and an efficient justice system are an essential
ingredient of the rule of law.
Note that, for Lord Neuberger, the government is here being held responsible for criminality which is the result of deliberate government policy. Not only is the government losing its authority, but so is the law. Also, the requirement to protect the country from attack from abroad, does not allow for the abandonment of the rule of law. Thus, both of the government’s strategies for tackling the financial crisis, its programme of austerity, and for tackling what it calls its war on terror, the persistent undermining of civil liberties, are wrong. Both the financial crisis and the problem of domestic terrorism, are the direct result of deliberate government policy. Both are seriously damaging the rule of law and making the country not worth living in.
In other aspects of the government's class arrogance, Iain Duncan Smith claims that it is perfectly possible, in
2013, to live adequately on £53 per week. It is reported in the press that at
the time of telling the British people that, he was spending £35 per day on his
breakfast. Michael Gove, another minister in the government, authorised over
£8000 expenses for his advisers on taxpayer funded credit cards for overseas
trips over an 18 month period, including meals for £180 in one restaurant. In
the 18 months prior to October 2011, the government authorised £471 million on
taxpayer funded credit cards for its Departments. When asked about this
expenditure, the government simply refuse to provide any details about what was
purchased and why? What neither the government nor the general public seem to
understand is that these types of expenses are a form of welfare benefit. In
May 2013, the Prime Minister had a holiday in Ibiza at a villa that cost
c£11,000 per week. Now it was reported that he was sharing the expenses with
another two families, but even with that he was spending over £3000 a week
simply on accommodation when his Welfare and Pensions Secretary was telling
everyone else how they should be happy on £53 per week for all their living
expenses. Even though the Prime Minister was paying for this out of his own
pocket, conspicuous behaviour of this sort, at a time when over half a million
children are being fed on a daily basis from foodbanks is a definite recipe for
social unrest.
As a result, the government are sending a clear signal to
the rest of society that the rules they expect the population to adhere to do
not apply to them. The government are actively and quite indifferently,
undermining the rule of law by their behaviour, and, never forget, if the government do not feel bound to respect their own laws, then they cannot expect anyone else to do so either.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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