New legislation would stop people taking on big corporations. The press has remained silent to protect its own interests
The government is trying to force its legal aid bill through parliament. What few people know about – because it has had little coverage – is the second part of the bill, which is nothing less than a cack-handed attempt to change the legal system to benefit large corporations when they are being sued. Part two of the bill is going to affect a lot of people: the parents of babies brain-damaged at birth, victims of human rights abuses like those in the Trafigura case, and victims of media corporations' desire to print half-truths and invade privacy. Yet the same part of the bill has been sold to a willing media as an attempt to reduce motor insurance premiums. You'll have read and seen lots about that last aspect of the Tories' plans.
So what will the second part of the legal aid bill really do? Nominally, it is about changing the rules of no-win, no-fee. At the moment, bringing a complicated case like defamation to court, when media companies will often deny liability until the last minute, takes a lot of time and money. If you win your case, you get damages – which are usually quite low – and then the loser pays the costs. Under the new system – after the introduction of the new bill – the loser's liabilities will be limited and the average winning claimant will end up paying not just their lawyer, but also the insurance they have to take out to protect against losing. This will most likely be more than they get themselves in damages. It means that most victims will end up, in net terms, with a bill for winning their case.
So under the government's proposals, it would be unaffordable for me or any member of the public to take on the financial might of the multimillionaire owners of the free press over an issue like phone hacking. Anybody challenging a Murdoch in future would find themselves exhausted and outspent by the wealthy who carp on about freedoms – but only for those who can afford them. That's what the powerful do. They drag out cases until you've sold your house and your possessions trying to get justice.
When I looked into the bill, I found that numerous media corporations were listed as respondents to the consultation. There were 16 responses, 11 from print media, five from TV. When I dug a bit deeper, I found that their responses were identical, largely supportive of the government's proposals. From the Guardian to the Mail, from the BBC to Sky, what I found looked to me like collusion to benefit media barons and shareholders and restrict access to justice for the less well off. One highlight was the Mail and the Express citing the European convention on human rights in their favour. What would their hate-filled columnists say about that?
The only time the second part of the bill has really featured in the press before was when Bob and Sally Dowler wrote to David Cameron and Nick Clegg about it. The prime minister and his deputy completely dismissed the Dowlers' concerns, knowing they'd get a favourable write-up.
At the Leveson inquiry the media's much-cited defence is that they work in the public interest. But the legal aid bill shows their legal departments conspiring to lobby in identical words for their owners' political and financial interests.
This is a whole new angle on the debate currently being played out. We've got Leveson, a defamation bill that seeks to change the way defamation works, and this attempt to make it impossible to bring your case even when there has been defamation under the new definition.
The media is the only channel through which the average person can find out what is going on in the political and judicial arena. So when the media conspires to ensure certain legislation is passed, how on earth can that legislation come under the public scrutiny it deserves? The answer is it can't.
I've got no problem with legislating to stop dodgy whiplash claims or bring down motor insurance premiums. Jack Straw is leading a campaign that does just that, by restricting referral fees and dodgy spammers. But this bill isn't about that. It's about rigging the civil justice system for ever so that ordinary people can't take on vested interests and today's supercorporations. It's going to take us back to a time like in that old joke: "Justice is free to all. Just like the Ritz."