A cell of left-wing activists?

Or a group of professionals representing their clients

Where would you find “arguably the most radically effective cell of left-wing activists in Britain”? A trade union? An undercover protest group?

No. The answer, according to Ross Clark in today’s Spectator magazine, is Garden Court Chambers, a set of barristers established just over 50 years ago.

The word “cell” suggests a small group of politically motivated individuals. But Garden Court, according to its website, has more than 190 members — including 29 KCs.

It’s perfectly true that some — I expect most — of those barristers could be described as left-wing. Members of Garden Court “use the full extent of the law to tackle social injustice and inequalities, narrow the wealth gap and promote the ethical use of corporate power”, their website says. But does that make them activists? All of them? And if it did, would it stop them acting in the best interests of their clients?

Clark identifies individual barristers whose political views he does not share. I don’t share their views either. But provided those barristers act lawfully and comply with their professional obligations it is not for me, as a journalist, to tell them what to think.

Still less would I argue that they should not do their best to represent clients charged with protest offences. Without criminal defence lawyers, there can be no trials and no convictions.

Clark is on stronger ground when he criticises the public positions taken by barristers who sit part-time as tribunal judges, particularly those who decide immigration and asylum cases.

Any lawyer who aspires to a full-time judicial post knows that it’s best to steer clear of political controversy. But if public positions taken before the start of a judicial career are to preclude sitting even part-time, then the lady chief justice needs to give due warning. Excluding those who have already spoken out will make it harder to recruit judges with the specialist experience needed.

The trap Clark falls into is to imply that Garden Court — named after the chambers’ original location in Middle Temple — is some sort of entity rather than a group of freelances who have agreed to share overheads. That was the mistake made by the Chinese government when it imposed sanctions on Essex Court Chambers in 2021 after four members had written an opinion about how China’s Uyghur population were treated.

Those chambers said at the time,

Essex Court Chambers is not a law firm and has no collective or distinct legal identity of any kind. Members of chambers are self-employed sole practitioners each regulated in their own capacity as separate individuals by the Bar Standards Board.

Members of chambers are commonly retained by opposing sides in the same dispute, both in litigation and arbitration, with protocols in place to safeguard confidentiality. No other member of Essex Court Chambers was involved in or responsible for the advice and analysis contained in the legal opinion or its publication.

The same principle applies to all barristers’ chambers. As Garden Court explained last month, “all members of Garden Court Chambers are members of the independent Bar of England and Wales, are self-employed and are regulated by the Bar Standards Board. Professional conduct of members is not regulated by Garden Court Chambers.”

In response to the announcement that one of its members had been instructed to represent the proscribed terrorist group Hamas, Garden Court said “we take this opportunity as a chambers to make clear that we unequivocally condemn racism and antisemitism in all its forms”.

It is only by treating Garden Court as an entity that Clark is able to report that

the chambers acted for a group of elderly Swiss citizens who claimed their government had breached their right to family life by taking insufficient action to counter climate change, thus making it too dangerous for them to go outside in a heatwave. The case was heard by the European Court of Human Rights, which found in favour of Garden Court’s arguments.

The KlimaSeniorinnen were indeed represented by Marc Willers KC of Garden Court. But their senior counsel, who addressed the court first, was Jessica Simor KC of Matrix Chambers. Barristers have always worked with barristers from other chambers.

“For those who believe the rule of law matters,” Clark concludes, “the expanding role of Garden Court’s lawyers in our national life may well be a cause for concern.” Not so. For those who believe in the rule of law, it matters that more than 190 barristers have been condemned for representing clients whose positions they may sometimes agree with.