Our old pal Ruth Wishart made the perfect introduction " Michael Mansfield is a man who threatens to give the legal profession a good name".
Michael Mansfield is a radical lawyer in the true sense of the word , seeking to go to the very roots of an issue in not only a technical legal sense but also in a philosophical moral justice manner.
He talked about many cases of injustice he has helped to resolve including the Birmingham 6 ; Lawrence;Belmarsh and the Bloody Sunday enquiry.
His basic theme of the talk was the politicians have failed in their duty ; the law profession as a whole has failed to protect the citizens rights and the only way you can get justice is to demand it yourself in an individual and collective manner.
Michael expressed a sentiment that the UK electorate would vote in such a manner as to give no one particular political party a clear mandate in the next upcoming General Election.
He cited two extraordinary examples of the state of play in the field of legal and political redress which have slipped under the radar of the medias duty to inform the public , the first is only 4% of trials today are conducted by jury , the other 96% are completely non-jury affairs and the other was the passing of the Enquiries Act in the mid-2000s which mean enquiries like the Chilcott enquiry into the Iraq war can only be commissioned by the Prime Minister who can solely decide on the need for one ;parameters of the enquiry ; how far it can go ; and who Chairs it.
Here you can see the interview Michael Mansfield done for the BBCs Hardtalk programme.
And here is a quite remarkable must hear talk by Michael Mansfield on the harrowing ongoing plight of the Palestinians: ( it comes in 5 parts)
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