The Looking Glass

  Access to Justice - LASPO Act of 2012 COLIN PANA U6 The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act of 2012 (LASPO) is a controversial piece of legislation that has gathered much attention in regards to its limiting effect on society’s access to justice. It is, however, important to consider the rationale behind the government's implementation of the act -  that being the spirling cost of legal aid which stood at a figure of £2.2bn in 2010 while also ‘attempting’ to target the highest priority cases and those who need it most. Above all, despite the government’s intended objectives, this piece of legislation is underpinned by the negative unintended consequences that have ultimately left the most vulnerable members of our society without legal representation and legal guidance.  A Brief History: The system that was formed under Clement Attlee’s labour government in 1949 under the name ‘Legal Aid and Advice Act’ had the sole aim to ‘provide legal advice for tho...

Robin Elfsberg, U6R. Introduction: At the close of the Second Communist Congress on the 8th of December 1847, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were commissioned to write a book to perfectly solidify the beliefs of a group who had been feared by ‘Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies’ - at least so they claimed anyway. A mere 68 pages, it would be globally embraced, endlessly re-interpreted and reinvented for different cultural contexts and circumstances as it is now. It was the Communist Manifesto, that would finally manifest the spectre of Communism and possess the minds of thinkers and revolutionaries for centuries to come. On the tail-end of a millennium, a lone writer published a book, expanding upon an article he had published in The National Interest in 1989 around a critical juncture in human history. With the unprecedented fall of the Soviet Union and the general loss of face for communistic governance, Francis Fukuyama was confident that ...