Adam Smith Institute

Four fundamental pillars of freedom, jury trial, Double Jeopardy, Presumption of Innocence, and Habeas Corpus, are threatened by an unprecedented alliance between populism (to sound tough on crime) and modernizing zeal. The net result will be to make the British people more vulnerable than ever to arbitrary action by the State. While it is important to tackle crime, sacrificing the liberties that protect the innocent will not help bring the guilty to justice. And every time an innocent person is convicted, the real culprit is left free to commit more crimes.

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Up to now, access to justice has been the privilege of the wealthy and the minority who are sufficiently poor to qualify for civil legal aid. Most other people had no access to civil justice, a factor which has brought the civil justice system into disrepute. The government is presently undertaking a major and long-overdue reform of the civil legal aid system in accordance with the Access to Justice Act 1999. Reforms enacted on 1 April 2000 abolish legal aid for most civil claims. Instead, it is expected that cases will be funded by the conditional fee system - popularly known as "no win, no fee". In this system the lawyer agrees with his client to charge an additional success fee if the claim is successful, but may charge nothing if the claim fails. It is an example of payment by result. These reforms effectively represent the privatisation of access to justice. The civil courts are increasingly accessible to anyone with a meritorious claim.

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This paper examines the Labour government's record on individual freedom in their first 500 days in office.

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Peter Reeve, himself an experienced lawyer, says that the whole process for selecting and appointing the UK's top barristers -- Queen's Counsel -- is both antiquated and against the public interest. The legal profession is one of the country's poshest but most effective trade unions, and its top echelons have proved skilled and successful at protecting their restrictive practices through the assaults of various governments. But their monopoly restricts the numbers of those with access to this spurious qualification, and in effect sets up a pricing ring that raises the costs of the court system and prices many people out of access to justice.

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Our courts our slow, outdated, and costly. Adam Thierer shows how people in the US have abandoned them for private arbitration: and how the state and federal courts have had to accommodate this change. A model for modernising the court service in the United Kingdom and elsewhere?

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At the centre of the problem for the Police Service is the fact that while the crime rate appears to rise inexorably, local authorities and central government have to operate within an economic framework of financial restraint. Resource allocation to the police therefore not only implies difficult decisions, but is further complicated because the business of evaluating the success of the police is an imprecise and highly subjective matter. The Police Service with its monopolistic, un–competitive structure, operates all too easily in an environment where there is little or no yardstick for comparison against alternatives. This report looks at the different ways that crime is combatted. It also argues that a return to local policing is the way forward to fight the rising levels of crime with the major restructuring of the police serivce giving rise to greater service evaluation, improved efficiency and a more flexible response to the increasing market demand for choice.

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Professor Logan outlines the moral case for privatising prisons.

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Britain's prison system is in a state of crisis. Violent incidents, industrial disruption and rooftop sieges are common reminders that radical reform of the system is urgently required. Antiquated Victorian prisons often house three prisoners in cells designed for one. The overcrowding and poor conditions inevitably lead to resentment and tensions which break out in violence.

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Way back in 1986 the Adam Smith Institute called for the reform and liberalisation of the archaic drinking and licensing laws of England and Wales. This study by the ASI compared the difference between Scotland and England and Wales after the laws had been changed North of the border. It found that even though alcohol was more readily available there, there was a reduction in the negative aspects of drink such as disorderly behaviour and health. Fifteen years on a government have finally seen sense and decided to relax the laws that govern drinking. The evidence of the past points towards a much safer and healthier environment.

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