How You Can Help the Fight to Save Legal Aid

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Respond to the Consultation

The government's consultation on cuts to legal aid closes on 4th June 2013.  Please take a minute to use our template response to the government's consultation on cutting legal aid.

The consultation has now closed.

Sign the Petition

You can sign the petition against the cuts at https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48628/signature/new

If the petition reaches 100,000 signatures it will be debated in Parliament.  We're currently most of the way there - help push us over the edge.

Build for United Strike Action

The proposals will not be defeated by petitions and consultations alone.  Contact us to see how you can get involved in building united strike action across the profession.

Haldane Policy: Strategy Regarding Legal Aid Cuts

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On 13 May 2013 the Executive of the Society approved a policy setting out our strategy to defeat the government's vicious legal aid cuts.  The policy calls on our members to intervene at every level in the profession to encourage a militant approach to the fight back, and to call not only to protect the existing system but to rebuild what has been lost already.

The Society will be calling for an immediate and co-ordinated 24 hour strike at all levels of the profession, and for a programme of increasingly intsense strike action thereafter until our demands are met.

Legal Aid: Lobby Your MP on EDM 36

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Early Day Motion 36 on the reform of legal aid: please write to your MP and ask him or her to support it.

That this House deplores the Government's intention to award legal aid franchises to a limited number of contractors, effectively abolishing a client's right to choose their legal representation; notes that this will reduce the quality of legal representation to the lowest standard possible; further notes the fact that firms currently compete on quality of service and will henceforth be required to compete on the basis of price; regrets the damning effect which this further reform of legal aid is likely to have on high street solicitors firms who are likely to either close or abandon legal aid cases; further notes that this will have a very detrimental effect on the provision of services through the medium of the Welsh language; further notes that this will create vast advice deserts in many rural areas; further regrets the departure from the principle of equality of arms before the law and the rights of all citizens to access to justice; and calls on the Government to abandon this ill-thought through reform immediately.

Your MP can be found at http://www.parliament.uk/about/contacting/mp/

Publicly Funded Justice: The Writing is on the Wall

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Michael Mansfield QC, President Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

The state has a responsibility to enshrine the principles of justice in legislation as well as establishing and maintaining the means of its implementation.

This government and its predecessors have increasingly failed in both these respects. They speak gobbledygook about human rights and the two most central figures the Justice Minister and the Home Secretary have recently displayed an appalling lack of understanding in their wild hostility to the ECHR. The cuts on all fronts not only withdraw benefits but also emasculate the most vulnerable.

Whole areas are now without any legal aid or only a skeleton resource.

None of this is primarily about lawyers, although they are effected, it is about a basic provision, Justice, the very substance of what is left of our democracy. No fundamental rights are worth the paper they are written upon unless they can be enforced especially against overweening and corruptive authorities.

All this is known and has been foreshadowed over the last decade. The proclaimed agenda is the privatisation and fragmentation of all public services. The thinly veiled rationalisation now is the crippling debt brought about by a free-wheeling private finance sector. There are alternatives which George Osborne vehemently opposes such as a financial transaction tax.

Now is the time to alert and collectivise the public conscience to take a stand. It cannot be achieved by pockets of protest and opposition within the legal profession alone. Negotiating for the crumbs that might fall from the table is also not an option. There has been, with small exceptions, an intransigence and almost dismissive contempt by government towards the plight of the citizen.

The writing is on the wall for all to see and has to be erased by the determination and singular purpose of civic society. There are presently many networks available to facilitate this, AVAAZ and 38 DEGREES are two fine examples which serve constituencies of millions. They have already brought about seismic shifts in opinion and policy. The Coalition has a limited shelf life and its misplaced objectives can be removed by concerted effort.