Parents Against Injustice
Sweeping reforms will restrict access to justice and hit vulnerable hardest, warn law charities
The government’s proposals to slice £350m out of the legal aid budget are a “false economy” that will hurt the “vulnerable and socially excluded” hardest, an independent inquiry warns on Tuesday.
Final plans for the cost-cutting reforms are expected to be announced by the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, as early as the end of this week. They have been criticised by law centres and charities for restricting access to justice.
Under the plans, the £2.2bn a year legal aid budget will be slashed. While the Ministry of Justice’s impact assessment last autumn suggested 500,000 fewer cases would be entitled to funding, Legal Action Group estimates up to 650,000 removed from access to legal aid; other estimates suggest it could mean 725,000 fewer cases.
The MoJ has said the reforms will encourage people to take advantage of alternative routes to resolution – such as mediation – which will not involve the expense of court proceedings.
The report, Unequal Before the Law?, has been published by the Commission of Inquiry into Legal Aid, a group established to examine the effect of the legal aid cuts.
“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,” it says.
The commission’s panel – former Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, Diana Holland, of the trade union Unite, and Reverend Professor Nicholas Sagovsky, the former canon of Westminster Abbey – say: “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.”
The report highlights fears cuts to legal aid could lead to increased costs for other departments, such as health, housing and education. According to figures supplied to the inquiry by Citizens’ Advice, for every pound of legal aid spent on benefits advice, the state saves up to £8.80, and for every pound of legal aid spent on employment advice, the state saves up to £7.13.
“The extent of the false economy of legal aid cuts was clear from the individual testimony that we received which demonstrated the potential for unsolved legal problems to spiral out of control,” the report said.
The panel added: “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. These knock-on costs provide a strong argument for maintaining levels of legal aid at least at the level they are currently at.”
Linda Lee, president of the Law Society, warned this year that the proposed cuts would bar thousands of people from turning to the justice system for help.
The campaigner Joanna Lumley has backed the Sound Off For Justice campaign, warning that those involved in relationship break-ups, school admissions and expulsions issues and clinical negligence cases could be deprived of legal advice and help in future.
Campaigners fear Clarke’s failure to convince cabinet colleagues that prisoners should receive larger reductions in their sentences would force the justice secretary to make even deeper cuts in legal aid. But Clarke insisted last week there would be no further reductions to the legal aid budget.
Lord Bach, Labour’s justice spokesman, said last week: “Many lawyers who work in social welfare cases see their jobs at risk and their clients, who are the most vulnerable in society, don’t know whether they will get legal help at all in the future. What’s the point of a legal aid system if it doesn’t look after the poor?”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/jun/14/legal-aid-cuts-false-economy
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