Fake Law: The Truth About Justice in an Age of Lies

by The Secret Barrister

Overview

Could the courts really order the death of your innocent baby? Was there an illegal immigrant who couldn't be deported because he had a pet cat? Are unelected judges truly enemies of the people?

Most of us think the law is only relevant to criminals, if we even think of it at all. But the law touches every area of our lives: from intimate family matters to the biggest issues in our society.

Our unfamiliarity is dangerous because it makes us vulnerable to media spin, political lies and the kind of misinformation that frequently comes from loud-mouthed amateurs and those with vested interests. This 'fake law' allows the powerful and the ignorant to corrupt justice without our knowledge – worse, we risk letting them make us complicit.

Thankfully, the Secret Barrister is back to reveal the stupidity, malice and incompetence behind many of the biggest legal stories of recent years. In Fake Law, the Secret Barrister debunks the lies and builds a defence against the abuse of our law, our rights and our democracy that is as entertaining as it is vital.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781529009958
Publisher:	Pan Macmillan
Publication date:	12/01/2020
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	668,713
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.17(h) x 1.34(d)

About the Author

The Secret Barrister is a junior barrister specialising in criminal law, and the author of the award-winning blog of the same name. The Secret Barrister writes for many publications, including The Times, the Guardian, New Statesman, iNews, Esquire and Counsel magazine.

In 2016 and 2017, the Secret Barrister was named Independent Blogger of the Year at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards. In 2018, the Secret Barrister was named Legal Personality of the Year at the Law Society Awards.

Their first book, The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken, was a Sunday Times number-one bestseller and has been in the top-ten bestseller list for more than a year. It won the Books Are My Bag Non-Fiction Award 2018, and was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year and the Specsavers Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2018.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Yourself and Your Home 9

2 Your Family 33

3 Your Health 72

4 Your Work 103

5 Our Human Rights 133

6 Our Access to Justice 164

7 Our Liberty 197

8 Equality and Due Process 238

9 Democracy 256

Epilogue: Our Future 281

Acknowledgements 291

Appendix 295

Notes 296

Index 371