Is the law unfair, unequal and unjust? And if so, why should we care? ????♀?

This week, the Long View has a written assignment to submit for the Atlantic Fellows for Social & Economic Equity (AFSEE) fellowship and ... I am fully procrastinating.

I've written about this before: 'How to stop avoiding stuff '; there are lots of reasons why we put off doing things we are supposed to.

This time, it is the challenge of not quite knowing where to start with a task I have never done before.

(??This follows on from another bit of great advice: embrace opportunities that scare you, and lean into things you think you're not good at. My dad gave me this advice in my late teens, and it's still paying off...many decades later, and beyond our short time together.)

So this week, I'm going to do something a bit different - I'm going to share some thoughts about the project I'm working on, ask you to help me critically examine those ideas, and hopefully, with everyone's help, figure out where to go next.

?? The problem: inequality and social injustice are on the rise in the UK

The UK has very high inequality of income compared to other developed countries; the 9th most unequal incomes of 38 OECD countries. Wealth inequality is also high and rising . In the UK, the bottom 50% of the population owned less than 5% of wealth in 2021, and the top 10% a staggering 57%. The top 1% alone held 23%.

Income and wealth inequality matters if you care about social justice because in a capitalist society - and in a state with a limited commitment to public welfare like the UK - there are very close links between our economic purchasing power, and our ability to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe, healthy and prepared for future opportunities.

Personal savings are the safety net for life's unexpected setbacks - loss of employment, sickness and injury, relationship breakdowns - and they are also springboards that propel people towards greater wealth - like investing in assets, or further education, or building your own business.

According to Google AI, "Social justice is when each person can exercise their rights within a society. A government that promotes social justice ensures that everyone has physical security, education, healthcare, and employment." (Google AI, 2024)

(??Feeling a little weird that Google AI can get this so right, and also learning - along with my students - how to cite to generative AI , after spending so many years telling students not to rely on Wikipedia as a credible source. Having said that, the real world result was probably that they kept using Wikipedia, but they just didn't cite to it ??. If you are feeling a bit meta, here is the Wikipedia article on whether Wikipedia is a credible source .)

??? The law is a tool that can create and reinforce inequality

Many people think about the law as a neutral, inevitable force in their lives - or they don't think about the law at all.

People who study the law (and also those who make it, or enforce it) know that the law touches every part of our lives, whether or not we acknowledge its impact, for example:

? How loudly I can play my music when I make my morning coffee

?? How safe (or not safe) I am from robbery or assault when I step out my front door

?? Whether I will travel to work by foot, or by bus, by train or by car

These are very simple, basic experiences I have every day which are profoundly impacted by laws that we may take for granted, but the operation of which are very real.

This leads on to the next big question ????♀?:

• Who makes the law? Who gets to decide how loud is too loud? Who decides how much money and resource we should spend on policing, criminal justice and the courts? Who decides where we build housing, how we develop public transport, how we tax fuel and how we ensure equal access for everyone, including disabled people, older people and visibly different people?
• Those people who make and enforce the law, whose interests are they upholding and protecting?

The truth is, the law is just a tool ??? - it can be used to make the world a more equal place but it can also be used to create and reinforce inequality.

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The legal project that I've founded, Lawmanity , is about finding solutions to the problem we face when the law does not treat everyone equally.

The thing that is really bothering me right now, is this question:

What happens if ordinary people in the UK feel the law is unequal, unfair and unjust? ????

We talk about a concept, particularly in the UK, called the rule of law ??

The rule of law as a concept can include a lot of things, but is usually associated with the principles that the law applies to everyone just the same, everyone can expect to be treated fairly and equally under the law, and that everyone has equal access to justice.

Lawyers and people interested in justice systems in the UK are quite interested in the safeguarding the rule of law - which is more often discussed in terms of procedural justice - although some people also talk about it in a wider sense to refer to whether the law is substantively just.

Substantive justice is about the legal rules themselves - for example, whether or not it's fair that rich people are allowed to set up complex schemes to shelter their income from taxation, and poor people are charged penalties for failing to pay relatively small tax charges on their earnings.

Procedural justice, in contrast, is about the process for accessing justice - for example, whether a rich person or a poor person, both accused of a crime or misdeed (fraud, for example) of the same magnitude, can expect equality of treatment and outcome in the courts, regardless of their very different financial resources.

So what happens, here in the UK, if people increasingly feel the law is not protecting them... and what should lawyers, judges and people interested in the justice system do about it?

Is this just a first world problem ?? or is there something deeper and more troubling to look at here? This feels linked to work that is done in political science around the idea of a democratic deficit ??? and my interest is, of course, sparked by a fear that if ordinary people withdraw from participation in politics and the justice system, this could be very, very bad for society.

That's as far as I got, and now I need help ????♀?

I would like to convene a series of conversations with people who believe the law is unequal, unfair and unjust - speaking from their own experience - as well as with people who believe in the rule of law and maybe even that we are knocking it out of the park on that front. I imagine people who are willing to defend our record on the rule of law will be senior lawyers and members of the judiciary, but willing to be wrong there!

Ideally, I would like to speak to people who hold these views and would identify themselves as both left- and right-leaning because I suspect there are minoritised and silenced perspectives on both sides of the political spectrum, and a lot of commonality. I am interested in people who feel alienated from the law, for any reason.

I would love to do this as an oral recording, as a series of conversations or orchestrated discussions - this will depend so much on finding the right people, working out the technology and I suppose getting ethics clearance as well as academic approval. ??

But mostly I would like to be a witness to real conversations between people who care about fairness and justice, and who are divided in their views on law's role in society in making that happen.

Oh also, I have about 10 months to make this happen.

So, please write in the comments, if you can give me any advice at all on:

• people I should speak to
• stuff I should read / watch / listen to
• bright ideas you have that you want to share
• major flaws you spotted in anything I wrote above

???If you have a lot of advice, or you want to spare me the humiliation of lengthy public criticism, you are also very welcome to write me at [email protected]

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PS: I have avoided mentioning the US elections thus far because I do realise that is a super stressful subject for some people - but please vote! ???- and here is a little gift of hope ? John Legend's stunning version of Georgia on my Mind during the 2020 US presidential election, after the Georgia results came in ????