SHAKESPEARE’S Henry V tells his Chief Justice that “my voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear”. No politician standing for election on Thursday could be expected to give such weight to the views of the judiciary and the legal profession. But when lawyers decide for whom to vote we do take into account a party’s commitment to the rule of law, human rights and access to justice.

Two weeks ago, a coalition of legal organisations and consumer groups published a Manifesto for Justice calling on Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to respect core values in the legal system. The Bar Council, the Law Society, the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association, Justice, Legal Action Group, Legal Aid Practitioners Group, Advice UK, Citizens Advice and the Law Centres Federation asked the three main parties to acknowledge the importance of the rule of law (in particular, support for an independent judiciary), human rights (including respect for international law) and access to justice (recognising that law is of limited value unless people have access in practice to legal advice and representation).

Mr Justice Hawkins observed in the Divisional Court in an 1890 judgment that you cannot expect too much of men and women “hot in their political excitement”. But it is asking very little to demand that those who wish to govern us pause in their assertions about how they will improve the economy, and provide better public services, while we focus on more fundamental values.

The Labour Government’s record since 1997 has been disappointing. Its greatest achievement was the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998, one of the few examples in constitutional history of a powerful government imposing constraints on itself. Since then, Tony Blair’s administration has shown declining respect for the rule of law.

The Government announced the abolition of the office of Lord Chancellor without consultation. Its proposal to prevent judicial review of immigration decisions was defeated only after a campaign led by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf. The Government’s policy on the detention of terrorist suspects without trial has been a legal shambles, with a defeat in the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords followed by an attempt (foiled by peers) to force legislation through Parliament without proper debate. The Government refused to enact measures necessary to combat postal vote fraud, a decision motivated by a concern that such measures might lower the turnout to the detriment of Labour candidates. Ministers have declined to publish the legal advice of the Attorney-General on the legality of the Iraq war.

All of this demonstrates a growing tendency to regard legal and constitutional constraints as an inconvenience to be evaded whenever possible. If lawyers vote Tony Blair into a third term of office, we must expect to move forward with Labour to ever more fundamental breaches of basic constitutional principles whenever the interests of the Government so require.

The Conservative Party of Michael Howard is an unattractive alternative. Its asylum policy proposes withdrawing from the Geneva Convention on the Protection of Refugees and would be inconsistent with the European Convention on Human Rights. Howard gave a speech to the Scottish Conservative Party Conference in March blaming Britain’s social ills on “the rights culture”, which was “turning common sense on its head” through a Human Rights Act which he described as “a charter for chancers”. Such pandering to populist prejudice demeans the currency of serious political debate.

Howard was Home Secretary in the last Conservative Government. In 1997, the House of Lords quashed on a judicial review his 1994 decision on the length of detention for the ten-year-old murderers of the infant James Bulger. Every Home Secretary makes legal mistakes, but one of the grounds of the House of Lords decision was revealing as to Howard’s approach to crime and punishment: the Home Secretary had taken into account 21,281 coupons sent in by readers of The Sun, material that Lord Steyn described in his judgment as “worthless”. The return to office of the Conservatives would produce more leading cases in constitutional and administrative law. Lawyers would benefit from an inevitable growth in litigation against ministers here, in Luxembourg and in Strasbourg. Barristers and solicitors meeting for lunch would ask each other: “Are you litigating what we’re litigating? ” But that is not a sufficient reason for lawyers to vote Tory.

In 1992, Mr Justice Macpherson rejected a claim by a disgruntled voter who sought an injunction to stop the general election because he could vote only for “vested interest political parties seeking their own ends”. Lawyers troubled by the refusal of Labour and the Conservatives to respect core legal values do have an alternative.

The Liberal Democrats are committed to fighting crime without eroding liberty. Preventing terrorism, deterring crimes of violence and tackling antisocial behaviour require more resources for the police force, not irrelevant gestures such as ID cards and the abolition of jury trial. A coherent immigration policy depends on effective border controls and the efficient removal of those who have no right to remain here, not the tearing-up of inter national agreements. The Liberal Democrats deserve the support of all lawyers concerned about the undermining of the rule of law, both domestic and international.

The author, a QC, is a barrister at Blackstone Chambers and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford

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