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

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I study and work in the legal field and this book does not fail to bring to light all the important issues that our legal system faces. I refer to dismay, because this is what I felt upon realising that my group of well-educated, largely liberal, tolerant, engaged and generous friends were so ill-informed as to what the acquittal of this footballer really meant with regards to the honesty of the woman involved and the appropriateness his behaviour.

There's a lot of really interesting cases covered in this book, and while I would have enjoyed some more personal anecdotes here and there, examining some of the big headlines of today was a fantastic approach. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. It is easy to understand and should be something everyone in the UK, at the very least, should be reading.Secondary legislation - regulations made by government ministers exercising power granted to them by Acts of Parliament (primary legislation). It's an eye-opening account of how confirmation bias leads us to make opinions irrationally and without considering the underlying evidence. Still, even I was shocked to see just how often those ministers who promise to ‘crack down on crime’ either do nothing or actually make things worse.

The language is quite technical from the outset and about halfway through the book, my eyes simply refused to read any more.He had repeatedly told his local farm group meetings that the best way to stop them, "shoot the bastards". As a result the general public are misled about sentences passed, the need to change laws, the importance to all of us of our human rights and why it is important to all of us that our governments obey the law and follow the rule of law. The English Civil Law and its protections is often held up as one of the institutions to be proud of in principle (here in Scotland I'll reserve full judgment), but unlike other institutions like the NHS or the BBC, most people feel that involvement with the law is about other people, unsavoury types who aren't like them, so either through ignorance of how the law works or through the heart getting the better of the head, they resent its protections when it seems to be giving bad people benefits they don't deserve. Even when attacking the idiots at Whitehall or Fleet Street, SB is gentle, speaking gracefully but never with diminished force. Bias is implicit in communication, for which some allowances can be made, but a deliberate campaign to present misinformation as truth erodes society.

Encompassing introductions to many areas of law, including employment, human rights and personal injury, it is far more varied than the criminal focus of the previous book.SB, both in the books and on their Twitter account, is wonderfully funny, irreverent, playful – and downright nice. SB - via the voice of Jack Hawkins - will grab you by the hand and drag you onto the rollercoaster that is our justice system. In these blinks, you’ll learn how to separate fact from fiction in legal reporting and discover what English law really says about contentious issues like child welfare, immigration, and personal injury compensation.

It's particularly concerning to read about how fake law facts have ended up quietly restricting people's access to justice. I raise as particularly delightful examples their glorious descriptions of potential pleasures lost due injurious cases of negligence on page 83, their sly references to ‘neo-Dickensian sportswear retailers’ and their accurately unflattering assessment of the mental capabilities of a former Justice Secretary at the bottom of page 93. As humans, we often prefer things to be black and white, whereas most legal cases have shades of grey in one way or another.

This ‘fake law’ allows the powerful and the ignorant to corrupt justice without our knowledge – worse, we risk letting them make us complicit. I mention this story, because it is one of the cases referred to by The Secret Barrister in their new book, Fake Law, in which they try to counteract some of the inaccurate stories we are constantly being fed by various sections of society, including the media, vested interest groups and, sadly, to an increasing degree, our own government, why this misinformation is so damaging to the very fabric of our society and why each of us on a personal level should care. This includes things such as courts ruling on withdrawal of life support or refusing to allow people to be deported as they have a pet cat.