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Just Law | 
 enlarge | Author: Helena Kennedy
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 44584
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0099458330
Dewey Decimal Number: 323
EAN: 9780099458333
ASIN: 0099458330
Publication Date: March 3, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
Homework for Home Secretaries ... June 18, 2007
Eric Ambleside (North Yorkshire)
Senior ministers, and not least the Prime Minister and the array of barking loons he appoints as Home Secretaries, should be compelled to read this book. They might just learn something.
There are plenty of contentious things within this book - the good Baroness does sometimes contradict herself when demanding complete equality for some and then preferential treatment for others - but her case for there being a creeping diminution of civil liberties as part of a startling rightwards drift by Blair's government is overwhelming. Some of the well-verified tales of blatant police racism in particular are horrifying.
The depressing conclusion for me is that there is very little alternative, as it hardly seems credible that that Blair wannabe called Cameron is likely to put liberty and fairness before tabloid headlines. Unless something startling happens, we will continue to blunder along in the wrong direction for years to come.
The sly dismantling of judicial fairness alongside idiotic scare-mongering concerning everything from Al Qaeda to "Asylum seekers" is going to be hard to overcome. Helena Kennedy is at least in a position to make her views known, and I for one am glad she is continuing to speak out.
 Life changing December 25, 2006
Mirrie (Cornwall)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I bought this book on the off chance, I had heard Helena on the radio and she just simply impressed me so much.
After reading this book I applied to study for an LLB(Hons) at University, I have just completed my first term and I have just re-read the book and it is no less of a decent read and inspiration. As a 41 year old female law student with aspirations to make a difference I would like to say to Helena "thank you" for setting such a brilliant example.
Do I think you should buy this book...absolutely!
Gripping! September 16, 2005
K. Abraham (Southampton, England.)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The best bits in the book are Kennedy's views on current anti terror laws. She is clearly one of the most informed and intellegent human rights advocates that we have in the UK. One should be thankful for people as passionate as Kennedy who works in the justice department and stands as a sobering opposite to the drunken and shabby policies of politicians who rush through draconian and unpopular laws which threaten civil liberties.
The unjust treatment of Black and ethnic minorities by the police force, especially in the larger urban areas, is also well worth the read.
 Second rate book from someone who should know better May 1, 2005
3 out of 13 found this review helpful
This is a second rate effort from someone who should know better. The book carries all the hallmarks of having been thrown together in great haste, as evidenced by the large number of grammatical and punctuation errors which lard the text.
Although I agree with many of Kennedy's conclusions (and admire her greatly for fighting against establishment bigotry and inertia) I felt that she had shot herself in the foot by writing a rant that is not backed up with hard research (e.g. "Research shows that..." without citing authority). Also, she asks us to accept her conclusions about complex subjects like immigration by making little more than bland assertions (E.g. "We are a nation of immigrants..."). She also fails to explain a major contradiction in her chapter about judicial appointments. To wit, she uses a few extreme examples of bad behaviour, such as sexist comments by white Oxbridge educated males, to make us believe that the whole system needs revamping, but then acknowledges that it is the finest judiciary in the world, emulated and envied by many other jurisdictions, and is incorruptible. Sounds like it works fine just as it is!
Finally, although Kennedy has been a tireless fighter against discrimination and a defender of the underdog, she runs into the danger in the book of sounding like one of those pseudo-non-racists that Richard Pryor used to take the mikk out of ("Have you noticed how nice white liberals are around black people?"). By all means let's rid society of racism, but let's do it using tighter rational, solid argument based on the facts to persuade, rather than her bland unquestioning taken-for-granted assumptions about police bigotry etc.
This book reveals what New Labour is really doing to the law December 5, 2004
Dr. R. G. Bullock (Winchester, UK)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Helena Kennedy is a barrister who sits on the Labour benches in the House of Lords. From a working class background, she has made her way to the top of her profession. She believes passionately in human rights and their central position in a healthy democracy and this book sprang from her alarm and despondency at what the Blair government is doing to those rights under the legal system. The attack on our right to a trial by jury raises her anger, and her contempt for those who should be her political soulmates is obvious. She asks why we lock up so many of our children in deplorable conditions - we have more in custody than any of our European partners. The antisocial exclusion orders do not please her either. Not because she is a "whinging, bleeding-heart liberal" but because it flouts the principles of our law. Exclusion orders are issued on the basis of the balance of probabilities, as in civil law. Guilt does not depend on the issue being established beyond reasonable doubt. Yet flouting of the orders can result in a prison sentence for up to five years.
So supposed miscreants can be put away for a substantial time on the lesser degree of proof. There has already been evidence of neighbours using the procedure to get back at people they dislike. Kennedy sees this as unjust yet it has hardly been noticed yet alone discussed in the media.Other subjects she discusses are imprisonment without trial in terrorist crimes and the divulging of past offences to a jury before they consider their verdict in a court case. All her arguments are based on long-established tenets of our judicial system. Tony Blair says that the balance is tipped too far against the victims of crime. What he does not say is that the accused are innocent until proved guilty. Innocent people are sent to jail for decades, their lives in ruins, yet the government seems to be unconcerned except to charge them board and lodgings for all their years behind bars. The title of the book comes from a meeting the author had with a government whip after she had voted against the party on one of these issues. "It's just law!" he said, using the word 'just' as 'only' or 'merely'. She means 'just' as 'fair', nicely contrasting her more noble purpose to his cynical remark. Kennedy wrote the book very quickly and it sometimes shows in some repetition but she was clearly a very angry lady. Her message is very important indeed. Authoritarianism seems in the ascendent in the USA and UK and we are sleepwalking towards a rather unpleasant world.
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