MOJ plan further cuts that will totally undermine legal aid (Article from Unite the Union)

Please respond to the Ministry of Justice's consultation, opposing these further cuts to the legal aid.

The Ministry of Justice is consulting on proposals to cut a further £220 - £300 million from the legal aid budget. The consultation “Transforming legal aid: delivering a more credible and efficient system” is open until 4 June 2013. If the proposals in the consultation go through, there will be no longer be any specialist, expert legal advice and representation available on legal aid.  There are two key areas of cuts.

Criminal defence lawyers face a complex process of competitive tendering leading to a race to the bottom.  Bids will be invited below a fixed ceiling for batches of work around the country. It is a system in which only warehouse law firms will exist and high street firms will either die or be absorbed by large corporations, intent on delivering legal services cheaply for maximum profit. The future will be one in which suspects are apprehended by G4S investigators, transported by G4S security, detained by G4S officers and imprisoned in G4S jails – at each stage represented by G4S lawyers.

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Petition to Save Legal Aid

The government is bringing forward proposals which would effectively destroy what is left of legal aid.  Access to justice will become almost impossible for all but the richest in this country.

These vicious attacks on the people of this country will not be defeated by gentle lobbying alone, and more information on practical steps which lawyers and non-lawyers can take will appear on Haldane's Legal Aid campaign pages (/news/category/legal-aid) over the coming days.

For now, to help build momentum in the campaign against the government's vicious cuts, we are asking members and non-members alike to sign the petition against them available at 38 Degrees.

Fourth Pillar of the Welfare State...

By Liz Davies

On April 1 cuts of £350 million from the legal aid budget of £2.1 billion came into effect.

As of now, there is no free legal advice for employment cases, non-asylum immigration cases, consumer rights and, most perniciously, welfare benefits.

Those needing welfare benefits advice are, obviously, the poorest in our society. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) should of course get its decisions on who is entitled to what right.

Yet 40 per cent of challenges against DWP decisions succeed, showing that it freq­uently gets decisions wrong, most scandalously when disabled people are certified as fit for work.

From now on it will be almost impossible to get independent advice on whether to challenge a DWP decision.

There is now no legal aid available for family disputes, unless domestic violence is involved. This will actually lead to more disputed court cases and more acrimony between separating couples.

Family lawyers are required to try to resolve family disputes amicably, using courts as a last resort.

These were the Laspo (Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012) cuts. For the last two-and-a-half years, a coalition of legal aid lawyers, trade unions, the Citizens Advice Bureau and other voluntary sector and campaigning groups had fought tenaciously against these cuts.

An independent commission of inquiry organised by the Haldane Society and Young Legal Aid Lawyers reported in June 2012 that legal aid is vital to protecting the rights of vulnerable people, to upholding the rule of law and to holding the state to account.

It found that cutting legal aid is a false economy - court cases take longer when non-professionals have to defend themselves - that cuts to legal aid will drive out committed lawyers and that cutting legal aid is not a fair or effective way to reduce unnecessary litigation.

And then on April 9 the Ministry of Justice announced more cuts - an additional £220-300m a year.

The targets are the Tories' favourite hate-figures - defendants in criminal cases, prisoners, people without lawful residence in the country and legal aid lawyers.

At first glance, making defendants with a disposable income of £37,500 or more ineligible for criminal legal aid seems irrelevant to socialists.

However, just like free treatment on the NHS means that patients and their families don't have to worry about paying for treatment when they have so much else to worry about, so the availability of legal aid means that someone facing criminal proceedings can concentrate on his or her defence.

After all, that person might be innocent. Legal aid will be seen as a poor person's option. Just as the Tories want to create a health service where those who can afford to will pay privately, so NHS treatment is seen as sub-standard and only for those who cannot afford insurance, the same will apply in the courtroom.

The other proposals are straightforwardly appalling. Currently prisoners receive legal aid to help them challenge disciplinary decisions or other "treatment" issues in prison.

If you are incarcerated, being able to challenge apparently petty disciplinary decisions gives you some measure to control and autonomy.

In addition, some of those "treatment" issues have ended up at the European Court of Human Rights - a prisoner's right to have his or her correspondence with a lawyer remain confidential, or the notorious decision that prisoners should be entitled to vote. No more ground-breaking cases on prisoners' rights will be brought.

Legal aid is to be denied to anyone who is not in Britain or Northern Ireland lawfully. Many of my clients came into the country on a visa and then overstayed.

They remain underground, invisible to the authorities, until such time as they may be destitute.

If they have children and are genuinely destitute, social services have a duty to help. But frequently, social services simply turn those families away.

Legal aid means that the children can enforce their rights, so that social services don't leave children destitute. Without legal aid, there will be more destitute children because their parents are so-called "illegal immigrants."

Criminal defence lawyers face a complex process of competitive tendering leading to a race to the bottom.

Large corporations, such as Capita or A4E, want to deliver legal services just like they deliver housing benefit, education services or employment advice - cheaply and badly, employing low-paid staff to tick boxes.

Cases will be poorly prepared, important points of law or facts will be missed and there will be pressure on defendants to plead guilty.

Miscarriages of justice will result and will not be remedied for years.

Civil legal aid lawyers have tried to absorb cuts in funding for several years now and now see rates being cut by over 50 per cent.

Soon there will be no specialist legal aid lawyers in either criminal or civil law. If legal aid exists at all in the future, it will be as an small adjunct to a solicitor's business, almost a pro bono or charitable area of work.

Charitable work might be done with good intentions but it doesn't make up for a professional, specialist service.

This is not special pleading for lawyers (declaration: I've spent 25 years working in legal aid). The reality is that these cuts to legal aid rates mean the end to a legal aid service.

Response of the Haldane Society to government proposals

The Haldane Society expresses its alarm at the latest round of Government proposals to further erode the legal aid budget and with it the ability of millions to assert their rights before a court: “Transforming Legal Aid” (Ministry of Justice, April 2013). We believe that these cuts, if implemented, will be a catastrophic attack on access to justice for the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. The cuts introduced under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act only came in to force on 1 April.

As with the cuts being made to the benefit system we see this as nothing more than punishment for the most vulnerable in our society. And as with the judicial review consultation before it, the Justice Secretary makes a number of disparaging claims about legal aid and cases ‘without merit’ for which he provides no evidence at all.

The consultation proposals offend basic notions of fairness, justice and respect in the most pernicious ways. The removal of legal aid for all treatment matters in prison will be to deny prisoners expert assistance in asserting their rights in respect of one of the most fundamental aspects of prison life.

The introduction of a residence test for those claiming legal aid will disproportionately affect foreign nationals newly arrived in the country or here temporarily. It is nothing other than discrimination. Such legislation would mean potential abuses by the state will go unchallenged. Frequently, it is children of foreign nationals who need legal aid, so that they can get the social services’ support to which they are entitled if destitute. A residence test would leave children unable to enforce their rights.

In criminal work, the proposals for price competitive tendering for criminal legal aid work will destroy community legal services and herald a race to the bottom which will only favour those large corporations who can absorb the losses. The continued withdrawal of legal aid for defendants in criminal cases threatens the equality of arms in the courtroom. Pressure will be brought to bear to plead guilty and cases simply will not be properly prepared because no proper funding is allocated to them. Miscarriages of justice will result and will not be remedied for years.

The effect of these proposals, if successful, will also be to remove the ability of the client to instruct the solicitor of their choice. Instead solicitors will be allocated to clients through a rota system.

Both criminal and civil legal aid lawyers have faced – and absorbed – cuts to funding over several years. These new cuts, taken together with the LASPO cuts, raise the very likely prospect that there will no longer be specialist legal aid lawyers in the near future. An important part of the welfare state – free legal advice and representation for those who need it most – will be destroyed.

The Society is clear that these proposals must be opposed. We will be submitting a response to the consultation. We encourage all practitioners to do the same on behalf of their firms, chambers and other legal organisations. We call for all individuals,  representative and campaigning organisations, who share our view that access to a properly  resourced , high standard legal advice and representation is a fundamental pillar of the welfare state, to work together to defeat these proposed changes.

The False Economy of Legal Aid Cuts

Haldane Society and Young Legal Aid Lawyers release independent report arguing that cutting legal aid is "a false economy" ahead of expected government announcement on legal aid reforms.

A panel of independent experts have concluded that cutting legal aid will not bring the savings to Government spending that Ken Clarke hopes.

" UNEQUAL BEFORE THE LAW? THE FUTURE OF LEGAL AID " sets out the findings of a 'Commission of Inquiry into Legal Aid'. The Commission comprises Evan Harris, former Liberal Democrat MP, Diana Holland, assistant general secretary of the trade union Unite, and the Reverend Professor Nicholas Sagovsky, until recently the canon of Westminster Abbey. These three non-partisan and independent-minded experts, each with a long track record of promoting social justice, considered the cases both for and against legal aid.

Their purpose was to consider objectively, at a time of cuts to public spending including proposals to remove £350 million from the £2.1 billion legal aid budget (see over), the value of the safety net which our legal aid system provides for the ordinary people, sometimes poor and usually vulnerable, who rely upon it.

'Without legal aid I would not have been able to get the help I needed. I would have either been forced back into an abusive relationship or had to move to a refuge with my two children.' SH, written evidence to the Commission of Inquiry into legal aid

On February 2 the Commission took part in a live session at the House of Commons and heard from ordinary people who had received help under the legal aid scheme including the victims of domestic abuse (such as "SH"), destitute asylum seekers, individuals with mental health problems and those who had experienced debt and homelessness.

EP described how legal aid helped her escape her abusive and domineering husband and gain custody of their children. Mrs Whitehouse expressed gratitude for the legal aid lawyers who had helped her stay in her home of nearly 50 years. The Commission heard how people facing such problems in the future may find themselves unable to obtain advice or representation if the government reforms are brought in unchanged.

During its inquiry the Commission also considered evidence from groups such as Liberty and the Child Poverty Action Group as well as submissions from a wide range of organisations (the Ministry of Justice, Policy Exchange and The Adam Smith Institute).

The Commission made seven findings (see over). Unequal before the law? publishes those findings, the individual testimonies and the submissions that they considered.

Evan Harris, Diana Holland and Reverend Nicholas Sagovsky said:

'Legal aid is vital in protecting the rights of vulnerable people...many of those who receive legal aid are among the most vulnerable in society. They include the elderly, the disabled, the abused, children and the mentally ill. They each have legal rights which they would not have been able to enforce without legal aid.'

'Legal aid is vital in upholding the rule of law...There can be no semblance of equality before the law when those who cannot afford to pay a lawyer privately go unrepresented or receive a worse kind representation than those who can.'

'Legal aid is essential to holding the state to account...It would be wrong in principle for the state to tolerate bad-decision making while at the same time removing the ability of ordinary people to hold those bodies to account for their mistakes by reducing legal aid.'

'Cutting legal aid is a false economy...When coupled with the human cost to the vulnerable and socially excluded of reducing legal aid, the panel finds these increased economic costs are unacceptable.'

Having considered the evidence the Commission made seven key findings:

  • Legal aid is vital to protecting the rights of vulnerable people;
  • Legal aid is vital to upholding the rule of law;
  • Legal aid is essential to holding the state to account;
  • Cutting legal aid is a false economy;
  • A holistic approach is needed in providing legal aid;
  • Cuts to legal aid will drive out committed lawyers; and
  • Cutting legal aid is not a fair or effective way to reduce unnecessary litigation.

Unequal before the law? The future of legal aid is published by Solicitors Journal and the research company Jures as part of the Justice Gap series. It is edited by Jon Robins. This is the third publication in the Justice Gap series.

Information about the Justice Gap series including requests for hard copies and PDFs, contact Jon Robins (jon@jures.co.uk/ 07760 415 478).

It is available for download here.

Photos from the launch of the Legal Aid Report here

Please show your support for legal aid by supporting 38 degrees here

And sign the Sound Off for Justice petition here

Cuts to Legal Aid: Haldane's Response to the Green Paper

The Haldane Society has responded to the Ministry of Justice's consultation on cuts to legal aid. We call for an expansion of the legal aid scheme so that 80% would be financially eligible for legal aid, for better decision-maker by public bodies, and for legal aid to remain for social and welfare law and all other areas of law currently included. We warn that if legal aid is cut, only the rich will have access to justice.

Our full response can be read here

Our colleagues in Young Legal Aid Lawyers have produced a very detailed response, saying that these savage cuts will deny or delay justice.

YLAL's response can be read here

The response from the "Commission of Inquiry into the case for Legal Aid" is here

The Case for Legal Aid: An Inquiry

The Haldane Society and Young Legal Aid Lawyers held their "inquiry into the case for legal aid" at Parliament on Wednesday 2 February 2011. The panel of Canon Nicholas Sagovsky, Diana Holland and Dr Evan Harris, assisted by Mike Mansfield QC, heard evidence from people who had benefited from legal aid and from expert practitioners in the fields of welfare benefits, immigration law, housing and community care law. A full report will be posted here.

Click here to view photos