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Will legal aid cuts damage human rights?

Since April 1st 2013, changes in the reform system means that divorce, child contact, welfare benefits, employment and clinical negligence are no longer eligible for public funding in England and Wales.

As part of the austerity measures introduced by the government, the plan means that the UK will look to save around £350 million a year.

But could this damage individual human rights?

The Bar Council, which represents barristers in England and Wales, warned this September that the Government’s proposals will reduce human rights and may even end up costing the country more money than what could be saved.

Maura McGowan, QC, Chairman of the Bar Council said:

“We are deeply concerned that the Government’s legal aid reforms will restrict access to justice, rather than preserving or enhancing it.

“Some of the most vulnerable people in society will be subject to our laws but unable to claim their protection, just because they have lived here for less than a year. We believe that operates against the rule of law.”

McGowan isn’t the only person who is worried about the cuts, as earlier in the year, the Liberal Democrats voted to oppose further cuts to legal aid until the government could prove that there would be, “no adverse effect upon access to justice”.

Julian Huppert, a Liberal Democrat MP, advised that the legal aid debate should not merely consider the financial aspects involved with the savings and that, “the test is about the justice it delivers and the benefits it gives us all.”

In response however, Dominic Grieve, Attorney General for England and Wales, spoke of the cuts and his sympathy for solicitors in the UK at the Conservative Party Conference at the end of September:

“The Lord Chancellor is between a rock and a hard place – he has to implement savings which are exceptionally challenging.

“I have never been of the view you can exempt legal aid from that category. I am the first to recognise the bar and Law Society have a very difficult task and we have to look very carefully at the way it gives rise to an increase in litigants in person. But it’s not an area that can be left out the equation when it has grown so exponentially.”

Grieve also spoke of why he felt that the legal profession should undergo such cuts, despite it contributing greatly to the UK economy and stated that although he understood the view, “everyone has a reasoned plan for why expenditure should not be cut from their own area.”

With the Conservative Party promising to scrap the Human Rights Act after the next election, the future remains unclear of how both changes will affect individuals in need of legal protection.

Jonathan Wright from Richard Nelson LLP says:

“The cuts as proposed continue to attack the heart of the justice system in England and Wales; the human rights of every individual will be placed at risk.

“There are direct consequences to an individual by the proposed removal of legal aid in ‘borderline’ cases in the civil courts. This not only limits access to justice but will also have a huge effect on the natural evolution of case law which forms the backbone to our legal system.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chris Taylor .