Shamima Begum is playing the British public for fools
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
First the good news: the Government has won its case against former Isis bride Shamima Begum. The Court of Appeal has ruled that the then Home Secretary Sajid Javid did not act unlawfully when he stripped Begum of her British citizenship.
And now, inevitably, the bad news: she’s received almost £250,000 in legal aid, funded by British taxpayers. Yes, while national security has likely been enhanced by keeping her out of the country, it might have cost less had the Government welcomed her back to Britain, put her up in a four star hotel for the past couple of years and provided her with a 24 hour chaperone.
Legal aid has become a racket which turns the British public into the losers no matter what the outcome of these cases. Once an illegal immigrant, for instance, decides to take on the British state we are left like a medieval witchcraft suspect dangling on the end of a ducking stool and facing the certainty of death, either by drowning or being burned at the stake. Legal aid has turned the courts into a facility for the very rich and the very poor: you or I couldn’t afford to use them because we would have to sell our homes to meet legal costs.
We might have to do that anyway if we find ourselves wrongfully accused of a crime and we are assessed as being too wealthy to receive legal aid. But enter the country illegally, claiming not to have a penny to your name, and soon a lawyer could be at your service – all paid for by you and I.
It is getting more expensive, too. Last year, lawyers bleating about fees of £52 per hour for handling migration cases managed to persuade the Government to increase legal aid fees for migration cases by 15 percent – never mind that they were already paid five times the national minimum wage. Somehow, the magic money tree, which we are told doesn’t exist for any other purpose, has been found growing in the Home Office’s courtyard, its boughs laden with juicy fruit.
Why aren’t we at least capping legal aid? Shamima Begum’s lawyers should have been allowed a couple of hours’ of subsidised time to present her case. After that, she should have been on her own. If she wanted to fight all the way to the Court of Appeal she should have been forced to raise the money herself – or find a lawyer willing to act pro bono. She seems to have plenty of bleeding heart liberals on her side, so why couldn’t they have opened their wallets?
The same should have applied, too, to all the Albanian and other criminals who have somehow managed to convince courts that their human rights would be infringed if they were to be returned to their homelands after serving sentences in Britain. The law is a big enough ass as it is, without the public being obliged to supply vast quantities of hay and carrots to make it even bigger.
