Letters
Unreliable sources
Sir: Mrs Thatcher's government appears determined to win the race against time with the late George Orwell. The Lord Chancellor's Department is maintaining, or is to maintain, computer records on lawyers who may have the potential for all and even the most minor of judicial appointments, but these records are not to be open to in- spection by lawyers. That secrecy is defend- ed on the footing that, necessarily, the in- formation to be derived about them will, to put not too fine a point on it, come from gossip within the profession. One wonders why the task is not delegated to the Metropolitan Police. Similar records were kept, of recent years, by police in an Australian state until judges discovered the fact, and matters were brought to an abrupt halt.
In the circumstances I have no means of knowing, (a) whether I am included on these records, or (b) whether any informa- tion recorded is accurate. When the British Legal Association were recently interview- ing candidates for the post of Ad- ministrative Secretary, we learned that some of the interviewees had learned, from apparently reliable sources, that the BLA was (1) very left-wing, (ii) neo-fascist, (iii) well right of centre. As a member of the Association of Liberal Lawyers I wonder how, during nearly four years as Chairman of BLA, I could have been so blind. How does the Lord Chancellor regard me? As an anarchist?
Stanley Best
Chairman, British Legal Association, 116 London Road, Southborough, Tonbridge Wells, Kent
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