True friends stab you in the front? The importance of debate in today’s world

This is a quote most likely to be misattributed to Oscar Wilde. What he wrote instead in The Devoted Friend was: “But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain.”

This is Legal Tales’ 70th and final column. Over 70 columns, we will not have pleased or persuaded every reader, and never expected to. Our point was to explain the legal system plainly, and to say why it matters.

Barristers have long thought it part of our job to explain legal issues to the public and to offer our input on legal matters of public interest, especially those concerning legal rights and the administration of justice.

That has more to do with how we practise than with any special virtue: we operate as self-employed legal practitioners without a firm and without partners; from an institutional perspective, we are comparatively free of conflicts and pressures which may prevent us from speaking freely about legal issues.

The Bar is a self-regulated profession (subject to the court’s supervision) and a “trade union” in the traditional sense.