Legal Aid

The word is that the government, in their never-ending quest to save money, is now targeting the provision of Legal Aid, specifically the reduction, or in some cases the removal, of aid in a wide range of Civil and Family Law cases; for example, divorce; employment tribunals; school exclusion appeals; clinical negligence; and personal injury.

Not only does the government wish to cut the Legal Aid bill, it hopes, by restricting that aid, to reduce the number of cases that come to court, effectively denying to all but the rich the redress for wrong that the court system provides.

Whilst it cannot be denied that the bill for Legal Aid has reached record heights, around two thousand million pounds a year, the idea that access to the courts will be denied to large sections of the community has met with some strong opposition.
The Bar Council says that such a move will ‘compromise the very rights and freedoms which underpin our society’. The Law Society calls the proposals ‘short sighted’ and ‘a false economy’ while the Children’s Commissioner for England calls them ‘potentially devastating’.

It seems to me that a judicial system which side-lines those on low incomes, who are likely to be most at risk from unfair persecution and at the same time least able to defend themselves, is no justice at all.

‘Defend the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer’ is the noble sentiment engraved over the doors of the Central Criminal Court, a sentiment that appears to be lacking within the Ministry of Justice.