Statement from our President, Michael Mansfield KC, on hunger strikers in custody

The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers continues to express its grave concern at the situation facing hunger strikers currently held in custody.

We are grateful to our President, Michael Mansfield KC, for setting out the wider legal, humanitarian and constitutional context in which this protest has arisen, and for his assessment of the treatment of those involved.

Michael Mansfield KC states:

“A central and crucial point of the hunger strike protest in custody is about the custody itself. It arises in the context of a completely broken criminal justice system in which the prison population of 80,000 is at capacity with insufficient staff and accommodation; and a system of trial which is stacking a backlog of 18,000, entailing a wait of two or more years: equivalent to a four or five year sentence.

Without more this destroys two basic principles: the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial process. Waiting for endless months in constrained circumstances is in itself unbearable, even for those waiting on bail. Often 23-hour-a-day lock-ups.

But for the hunger strikers it is far worse. That’s why they have had to take the only route that is left. They are treated as if they are convicted terrorists of the most heinous kind. Their means of communication by phone call or mail are monitored and scrutinised so severely that they are denied, stopped or curtailed - on grounds of national security - because ‘of course’ they are ‘guilty’ of obstructing government from contributing to massive damage against civilian populations in breach of all the rules of international criminal law you can imagine.

The same rationale is applied to restricted visits by family members and to ‘non-association’ orders which have resulted in solitary confinement. This is the enactment of the famous Carroll comment on the UK system of criminal justice from the mouth of the Queen of Hearts: ‘Sentence first; verdict after.’

It is hardly surprising that independent medical opinion finds the degree of appropriate management and critical care sorely lacking for these cases, many of whom are at risk of death on any of the days leading up to Christmas.

Despite repeated pleas, Government - especially Lammy and Timson - have either ignored or refused even the bare minimum of a meeting. A meeting accords with Government policy and protocol frameworks concerning prison safety. Essentially, they recommend an early review aimed at bringing about a resolution by a number of obviously interested parties, including representatives of the prisoner.

The initial basis for refusal was straight out of populist dogma: to even speak to these innocents would be a sign of weakness, and anyway it might open the floodgates for all prisoners. The idea that the mainstream prison population would be incentivised to risk death in order to improve prison conditions or achieve bail is to them utterly perverse and without any foundation.

Talking is hardly going to elevate, or in some way unfairly favour, these young conscientious individuals. It’s the other way round. Talking might end the discrimination and, for a change, provide those who are detained a fair hearing - another threatened principle - equality of arms.

It’s on a par with the calamity of Lammy’s reasoning for drastic cuts to jury trial; perverse and without evidential foundation.

But then one of the unspoken benefits for government, should the cuts be carried out, is precisely these cases. Many of the public order, protest and criminal damage cases will still be waiting years for trial (it’s not the jury causing the backlog) but will no longer be tried by juries, which have a ‘nasty’ tendency to acquit. Much more efficient to leave it to a single judge, many of whom have already displayed real antipathy to the issues relating to the ECHR and proportionality, duress of circumstances and necessity, in the firm belief that convictions will ensue.

We need to treasure the legacy of Messrs Bushel and Lilburne – hence the campaign to defend our juries.

May the strikers be part of that tradition and live to achieve the justice they seek.”