Legal Aid: Why We are Fighting

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We hope the following provide some assistance in explaining the effects of the cuts, and why we are fighting them:

  1. Funding cuts to criminal legal aid will put many firms out of business, particularly community-based BME firms.
  2. Contracts for police station and court duty work represent price competitive tendering (PCT) by the back door.
  3. The £37,500 disposable income threshold for legal aid in the Crown Court will lead to many defendants being unrepresented.
  4. The one year residence test will mean that those who suffer injustice at the hands of the state will be unable to seek redress.
  5. The civil merits test means legal aid is no longer available for borderline cases.  These often include points of the greatest public interest.
  6. The judicial review proposals seek to insulate government from being held to account.  Lawyers will not be paid for the initial work done on JRs unless a judge gives permission for the case to continue.  Good cases will not be taken on if lawyers cannot afford the risk of later not being paid for the work undertaken.
  7. There is a real risk that civil legal aid cuts, including the 10% cut in rates in 2011 and recent cuts to barristers’ fees, mean that in the future there will be barely any civil legal aid providers and none who have specialist expertise.
  8. Without legal aid, many people will be dissuaded from pursuing good cases in court.
  9. There will be no equality of arms in court for people deprived of legal aid who bring cases against the government or public authorities.  The government has an open chequebook when it needs a lawyer.
  10. The government’s campaign is based on misrepresentation: of the UK’s spending on justice, on lawyers' levels of pay, and on the public’s views.

Download a printable version to distribute (pdf).
Download a printable version to distribute (docx).

NEW Petition to Save Legal Aid

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The Justice Alliance has launched a new petition calling on David Cameron to halt the Transforming Legal Aid proposals accompanied by the following message:

As opposition to the legal aid cuts grows from diverse sections of society, now is the time to put down a marker. We need to send a strong and swift message to the Government, we need to show the widespread support for legal aid and we need to defend access to justice.

Please sign this petition http://chn.ge/1dWvURV and join with Joanna Lumley, the first signatory, who campaigned to secure rights for the Gurkhas, themselves reliant on legal aid. If Grayling has his way innocent people will be wrongly jailed, the state will enjoy immunity for unlawful acts, victims of trafficking and domestic violence will be left without support. Don't let that happen. Join the fight for legal aid.

Please share this petition widely and encourage others to sign it. It has reached nearly 5,000 signatories since it opened on Friday morning.

Solicitors and barristers hold half-day of action

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On Monday – many months after the Haldane Society first called for direct action against the cuts to legal aid – courtrooms were forced to close as criminal barristers and solicitors refused to attend hearings. Hundreds of practitioners gathered outside court buildings where they were supported by campaigners, grassroots organisations and trade unionists.

Among the many protests across England and Wales, the Justice Alliance had organised a meeting of around 300 people at Westminster Magistrates’ Court where the range of demonstrators indicated the broad damage that these cuts would cause. Alongside the Haldane banner there were representatives of NAPO, Southall Black Sisters, the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign and the PCS. Speakers included Gary McKinnon’s mother Janis Sharp and Patrick Maguire of the Maguire Seven. Matt Foot reminded the demonstration of the unity against the cuts, shared by all but a handful of Tory MPs.

Typically, the Ministry of Justice has responded to today’s strike by desperately lying to the public. Legal aid minister Shailesh Vara told the BBC that “the average criminal bar barrister working full-time is earning some £84,000” (which is wrong even on the LAA’s own figures) and HMCTS claimed that 73% of Crown Courts and 95% of magistrates’ courts sat. But barristers speaking to the press reported earnings of £16,000, or £3.00-4.00 per hour, and it was clear from those inside the courts that lists were collapsing across the country.

The Haldane Society welcomes today’s solidarity against the decimation of legal aid and the progress that has been made in bringing the truth about practitioners’ fees to the public’s attention. But with the government on the defensive and public opinion coming around, the campaign must now move away from fees and focus on the importance of legal aid as a pillar of the welfare state. The government is waging a war on the poor and, as Chris Grayling so often points out, legal aid is not an exception from its agenda.

Motion for Trade Unions to Show Support for Legal Aid

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The motion below, which can be downloaded here in Word (docx) form, is intended as a model motion for trade unions who want to show their support to the fight to save Legal Aid.

This organisation believes:

1. Legal aid, which celebrated its 60th birthday recently was a major concession won in the post-war consensus years. This major reform was won by the working class hand in hand with the trade union movement and the Labour Party.

2. Legal aid helped to secure rights and court representation in relation to eviction, welfare and the threat of unjust convictions. It leveled the playing field between the richest who could afford lawyers and the poorest who could not.

3. At the time of its launch, eight out of 10 people were entitled to the scheme’s assistance. The latest figures from the Ministry of Justice reveal fewer than one in three are now eligible.

4. On 1 April 2013, the cuts in the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 came into force. There is no longer legal aid for advice or representation in welfare benefits, employment, family cases (where there is no domestic violence), immigration cases and consumer rights.

5. On 9 April 2013 the government announced a consultation on further legal aid cuts: “Transforming legal aid”. The Government intends to cut a further 17.5% from the criminal defence budget and proposes to introduce a tendering system for large scale regional contracts in relation to duty solicitor work. If these proposals are implemented, we believe that the quality of legal aid services will fall dramatically and there will be an increased risk of miscarriages of justice that could lead to innocent people being convicted of crimes that they did not commit.

6. In addition, further cuts to civil legal aid rates mean that there will no longer be specialist legal aid lawyers providing advice and representation in areas of housing law, education, for people asserting their rights against the state or other civil cases.

7. The legal aid budget only represents only 0.545% of national public spending (or £2.2 billion - the approximate cost of keeping the NHS running for 2 weeks).  Legal aid is provided at a very low cost to the public purse but has the potential to provide access to justice to a great many, most often those most in need.

8. Legal aid should be viewed as part of the wider trade union campaign to defend public services and the welfare state.

This organisation agrees to:

1. Campaign for the defence of legal aid.

2. Support calls for legal aid to be recognised as part of the welfare state.

3. Support publicity efforts including: demands to campaign for the defence of legal aid and for legal aid rates to be restored to pre-1979 levels; and publicising advice and representation on employment law issues, as a stepping stone to a fully funded legal aid system.

4. Affiliate to The Justice Alliance - an alliance of legal organisations, charities, community groups, campaigning groups, trade unions and individuals who are united in the opposition to the Government's proposed attack on legal aid and the criminal justice system[1].

5. Register our support for those in the legal profession taking direct action, including strike action.

[1] To affiliate please contact Justice Alliance organiser Russell Fraser: russell.fraser@me.com

Haldane Society Welcomes Criminal Bar Association's Call for Direct Action

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The Criminal Bar Association held a national delegates conference at Lincoln’s Inn on Saturday 16 November. The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers welcomes the Criminal Bar Association's determination to oppose Government's cuts to legal aid. We look forward to the calling of a day of action in protest in accordance with the resolution proposed by Mark George QC and Haldane Secretary Russell Fraser and passed unanimously. We will call on our members to support the Day of Action.

The Conference approved the following text:

The calling of a day or days of action on which no members of the criminal bar will undertake work in either the magistrates or crown courts. We will ask for the support of the representative bodies of the solicitor’s profession in standing by us on that (those) day (s). The purpose will be to demand that the government stays all its current proposals for legal aid and that the justice secretary engages with us meaningfully.

Legal Aid Consultation: Meeting for South London Criminal Defence Lawyers

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A meeting has been called for criminal practitioners in south London to discuss the current MoJ consultation on legal aid cuts. The meeting, held under the auspices of the LCCSA, will be held at the offices of Baxter Brown McArthur, 150A Falcon Road SW11 2LW on Thursday 10 October at 18.00.

Report on Tuesday's Mass Meeting

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The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers welcomes the determination, shown at a 500-strong meeting of criminal solicitors and barristers, to escalate the campaign against Grayling’s proposals to decimate legal aid, and to withdraw their labour as part of that campaign.

The meeting, called by the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association, the Criminal Bar Association and the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association, was attended by around 500 barristers, solicitors, and legal executives. It unanimously voted to oppose all the different cuts to legal aid and declared that the Ministry of Justice is not fit for purpose.

Speakers from the platform and the floor repeatedly called for barristers and solicitors to stand united and withdraw their labour from the Courts.  There was widespread dismay expressed from both the platform and the floor at the position of the Law Society not to stand in solidarity with their criminal members and colleagues by taking a firm stance to oppose the cuts and support direct action.

There remain discussions to be had as to when and in what form the withdrawal of labour will take place. The Haldane Society would encourage the various professional organisations to agree now that the legal profession will start by boycotting the courts – both civil and criminal – on a specified date and will consider escalating action.

1 October 2013: Justice Closing Down Sale - Everyone must go!

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The campaign against proposed Legal Aid cuts and reforms continue.

Solicitors, Barristers, Chartered Legal Executives and everyone involved in the field of criminal law are invited to a meeting on 1 October 2013 at 6.15pm to discuss the MoJ's latest consultation "Transforming Legal Aid: Next Steps"

Panel Speakers Include:-
Des Hudson - The Law Society; 

Greg Powell - LCCSA; 

Bill Waddington - CLSA;

Nigel Lithman QC - CBA; 

Carol Storer OBE - LAPG

Entrance to the event at the Camden Centre (opposite St Pancras Station) is by ticket only via the entrance on Euston Road. Tickets will be collected and scanned. There will be no requirement to sign a CPD register but if your ticket is not collected or scanned you will be unable to claim your 2 CPD points. You should be able to print your ticket from the link at the bottom of this email.

Tickets are available here.