In the 12th and
13th centuries, judges would be sent out from Westminster every seven
years to adjudicate on any disputes that had come about since their last
sojourn. In 1292, in Shropshire, Alice Knotte complained that Thomas
Champeneys ‘detaineth from her seven shillings in money and a surcoat of
the value of three shillings’. ‘Alice can get no justice at all,’ she
protested, ‘seeing that she is poor and that this Thomas is rich.’ She
implored the judge: ‘I have none to help me save God and you.’
Alice then might be Alice today. What should she do? She cannot
simply take the seven shillings from Thomas. Not only does the law
forbid it, Thomas’s wealth means he probably has the power to take it
back (or worse). So without access to a court, Alice has to rely on his
goodwill for her money and her surcoat. This shows the first reason to
care about access to justice, by which I mean being in a position to
have your legal claims heard and enforced by a court. Such access is
necessary if our rights are to have real content; without it, the rich
and powerful can exploit the poor and weak.
Necessity or ideology