The Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) is the representative organisation of around 1 million European lawyers through its member bars and law societies from 31 full member countries, and 11 further associate and observer countries.

The Council holds as first principle that access to justice is a fundamental right, an essential part and instrument of human rights, stipulated and protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 6 of the ECHR provides for free access to justice for any individual, without regard to his or her social status or economic position. Legal aid is an essential tool in ensuring such access and the Council considers it the duty of states and governments to guarantee, organise and finance such legal-aid systems, which permit those with the least means to obtain access to justice.

A meeting of the CCBE in Brussels at the end of last month was addressed by Europe’s commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship, Viviane Reding. She said: “Justice is a right, but without the means to pay for it, it is denied.”
Toon Musschoot, the representative of the Belgian Minister of Justice, said: “Justice is a public service and, as such, it must receive particular political attention, both in terms of quality and in terms of means.” Council President José-María Davó-Fernández called on governments and EU institutions to pay more than lip-service to legal aid and to deliver on what they have committed to in fundamental rights instruments.

The Council made specific recommendations to achieve Union wide equality of legal aid provision. Firstly legal aid should be dealt with as a fundamental right that guarantees access to justice and allows real and effective defence, granted to all irrespective of residence or nationality. A specific EU budget line should be set up to ensure the development of a European legal aid scheme and to support national schemes within Member States. Legal aid coverage should be available for all legal areas, jurisdictions and alternative dispute resolutions, including the assistance of a lawyer at all stages of the proceedings, the assistance of experts, translation and interpretation, and other trial costs, with specific coverage for additional costs arising out of cross-border trials. Common minimum standards should be set for granting legal aid within the territory of the EU. And there should be support for specific training for lawyers who provide services in the framework of legal aid.

Writing in the ‘Law Gazette’, Jonathan Rayner examines the possibility that the EU pledge to set mandatory levels of civil and criminal legal aid for member states from 2013 could cut across government proposals for drastic UK savings. He quotes the Law Society’s head of legal aid policy Richard Miller as saying: “The UK government’s proposed cuts to legal aid will put us out of step with the rest of Europe, which is embarking on a programme of broadening access to publicly funded representation, not shrinking it. There is a real danger that the proposed cuts will make us dip below the minimum standards imposed by the EU. We will have to make a humiliating U-turn and drag ourselves back up to an acceptable level.”

According to ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, 42 is the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything. But for the Government, 42 is more a problem than an answer.

Given that the number of days a suspect spends in detention before trial is a not a scientific exercise but an uneasy compromise, how can it be that 42 has achieved the status of a threat to the leadership of the government? While there has been much agonising , soul searching and almost daily concessions to get the provisions through Parliament, the actual number itself seems to be sacrosanct. All this for a proposed law which may be needed one day in the future, may never be used at all, and would affect very few people.

The police have apparently provided examples of circumstances which would justify the 42 days, but even they have not claimed that any terrorist has escaped justice because 28 days was not enough. The Security Services don’t want it, former senior Law Officers have spoken against it – even those who supported the Government in the previous 90 day vote – and almost all others in the know (but not on the Government payroll) agree that there is no evidence backing 42 days. The current level of 28 days is more than other members of the European Union consider necessary, despite being equal targets for terrorism. Their criticism of the British proposals has been robust and concerted.

Writing in the ‘Guardian’, Marcel Berlins says 42 is symbolic. “It represents all the government’s excessive anti-terrorist legislation; detention without charge or trial; the steady erosion of the rule of law; and the nibbling away of civil liberties. The resistance of the Labour rebels is not based on a calculation of how many weeks is appropriate. It is a statement encompassing the whole of Labour’s anti-terrorist policy. Enough is enough.”

Come back Douglas Adams. Your country needs you.