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Bringing Down Goliath: How Good Law Can Topple the Powerful

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Indeed, the judgment in that case could be seen as paving the way for tighter restrictions on who can bring a claim for Judicial Review, which is the GLP’s modus operandi. The requirement that a claimant has to have a “sufficient interest” in the impugned decision has long been interpreted generously, in favour of campaigning groups and the like. But Maugham’s scattergun shirtiness and unabashed politicising has severely tested that generosity. Lord Reed, now president of the Supreme Court, said in 2012 that “a distinction must be drawn between the mere busybody and the person affected by or having a reasonable concern in the matter”. Thanks to the GLP’s busybodying, successive Lord Chancellors have threatened to tighten up the “sufficient interest” test, in a way that is unlikely to benefit the public. Is this what the Good Law Project is for? Later today, WH Allen, part of Penguin Random House, will announce the publication of my new book, Bringing Down Goliath – How Good Law Can Topple the Powerful. Maugham gave an eye-opening portrayal of what he is fighting for when he spoke of the statue atop London’s Old Bailey. The statue is blindfolded and holding a pair of scales that suggest equality in law separate from political influence, which Maugham believes to be inaccurate. He focuses on collectivising the law for public means, as the law often mirrors the government’s political preference. He expresses that the Good Law Project is an antidote of the notion that law is a victory dance of power.

As a youngster, Maugham says, he never doubted that he would be successful. And if we adopt his definition of success — basically, winding people up ‘til they slag you off — he was correct. It is his insistence that he is, and was at all relevant times, right that precipitates much of the text of this work. (“Of course I get stuff wrong sometimes,” he concedes, but details are not shared.) Journalists who upset him, colleagues who question him, solicitors who take against him, and of course judges who find against him: they all have their turpitude explained to them, in painstaking detail. This book has a central and unfulfilled purpose in common with the Good Law Project itself: the protection and improvement of the reputation of Jolyon Maugham KC.

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Mercy Grant had a dream of becoming a hairstylist and living a quiet existence with her husband and child. As it turned out, her life was anything but quiet. This book highlights significant failings and potential widespread corruption. It shows how the law can prove and challenge but is failing to hold to account. However, as argued in this book, it is beyond its reach or remit. For a start, Jolyon Maugham is not quite part of the privileged North London elite that many will have assumed. Maybe he is now, but his account of his dysfunctional childhood and upbringing leaves one impressed he was able to overcome it and forge his career. It’s a reminder that for everyone in public life there’s a real person behind the persona. Jolyon Maugham KC lashed out after a reviewer said he was “in love with his own prose” and “a first-time author who should not be encouraged to re-offend ever again”.

Taxation law specialist Maugham was widely condemned in 2019 after claiming he had “killed a fox with a baseball bat” while wearing his wife's kimono in his garden on Boxing Day. In Bringing Down Goliath, Jolyon Maugham shares his inspiration and his purpose, and he reveals the story behind these landmark cases and the hidden fault lines of our judicial system. He offers an empowering, bold new vision for how the law can work better for all of us in the fight against injustice. Jolyon Maugham KC founded Good Law Project in 2017 with the belief that the law can also put power into the hands of ordinary people. It has brought a series of landmark cases against a dishonest and increasingly autocratic government and won widespread acclaim in successfully reversing Boris Johnson's unlawful suspension of Parliament. Already the largest legal campaign group in the UK, Good Law Project is shining light into corners the establishment would rather keep dark - from the failures of Brexit to the still-developing PPE scandal, to the tax arrangements of business giants like Uber. We both know I have written to many GC feminists seeking a private discussion of trans issues and to de-escalate the ‘debate’.Maugham also responded to a letter signed by 150 writers including Rowling, which denounced the “restriction of debate”. He gained notoriety when he brought a series of high-profile cases against the Government through the Good Law Project. This included legal action over the procurement of PPE and the employment of a PR agency with Tory links to work on Covid-19 communications at the height of the pandemic. The Harry Potter author’s remarks triggered a row as Maugham first suggested Rowling should read his book, before turning his sights on her gender-critical views. Anyone on this thread who believes that wasting billions – documented by the government’s own watchdog – on overpriced, unsuitable equipment is a good idea needs to have their heads examined. The book tells my story – my journey from homelessness at 16 to Queen’s Counsel and then campaigning lawyer – and why I believe the rule of law is under threat like never before. And it tells of Good Law Project – how it came to be, its successes and its future.

By law, the government must publish a summary of any publicly awarded contracts within a certain timeframe. Aside from this, Maugham weaved humorous commentary into his talk that kept the audience engaged and entertained. This book is definitely one that I would recommend for people with an interest in changing how public law can hold powerful people to account. The talk began with Maugham getting candid with the audience when he reflected on his life from childhood to tax lawyer to founding the Good Law Project. He talks of his adoptive father throwing him out when he was 15 years old and how he relocated from New Zealand to the UK with a desire for normalcy after an abusive relationship with the patriarchy. When he relocated, he met his biological father for the first time. He depicts a specific moment that surprised him about his father, an upper-class man, which was that he did not care to know what life was like in a coal-mining village. Maugham remembers this to be his connection with the working class, that he reveals he can now no longer connect with in his place of privilege. He talks of how his adolescent hardships led him to have conventional aspirations that led him to become a tax lawyer, as he desperately wanted to fit in. Hoffman was also Chairman and Director (unpaid) of Amnesty International Charity Ltd, a satellite of AI. Hoffman’s wife had also worked as an administrator at AI for many years. Here's something I'm rather conscious of. Accusing someone of being smug, or sensitive, or vain is a very easy thing to do. Those types of insults are very difficult to disprove because any effort to disprove it will own further your association with that characteristic. So when I use it to describe Jolyon Maugham KC's book, I mean for it to be a challengeable position, which ought to be playing out in the readers mind.This is, surprisingly, not hypocrisy. Like many convinced of their own righteousness, Maugham arrives at a seemingly hypocritical conclusion by fanatical sincerity. The explanation for these contradictions is simply that, to Maugham, ideology is the first condition of judging, and the law is merely an instrumentality to achieve his preferred political ends. A good judge, to Maugham, is a judge who will implement Maugham’s preferred political outcomes. He claimed that gender-critical feminists - who believe sex is biological and cannot be changed - had rejected his offers to debate the issue with him.

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