Another article from the Times this week ...
The latest British injustice: How you could be acquitted and still face huge bill for costs
Plans to reform the legal aid system and cut almost £200 million from its budget have brought warnings of a two-tier justice system: one for the rich and another for the poor. For the first time, acquitted defendants in criminal trials will have to bear the bulk of their costs if they instruct someone other than a legal aid lawyer to defend them under the reforms. Defendants who are convicted in the Crown Court will be means-tested and forced to pay back some or all of their legal bills.
Details will be outlined next week of a new round of reforms to bring in fixed fees for legally aided family cases and “reverse auctions” for criminal legal aid contracts.
The measures, which have provoked fierce opposition from judges, lawyers and MPs, are part of an overhaul to save £193 million over three years from the £2 billion a year legal aid scheme. Some call it the biggest crisis in 60 years of legal aid.
Kim Hollis, QC, vice-chairwoman of equality and diversity on the Bar Council, said: “These proposed changes will set back the advances and benefits of access to justice brought by the legal aid scheme over decades. Overnight, a two-tier system will be created, whereby those who can afford to pay the best lawyers will be able to have their interests properly and fairly represented in court. But those who cannot will be left to the mercy of the spending cuts, the result of which is that high-quality advocates cannot afford to practise and are leaving in droves.”
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, told The Times that he also wanted to cut the £127 million a year in legal aid that is spent on expert witnesses in court, including interpreters. The costs of such experts in criminal and civil trials are included in solicitors’ legal aid costs. Mr Straw said that family cases in particular had become much more complex and needed to be simplified. “Costs have shot up and this is now a very expensive system.”
Critics say that plans for fixed fees in family cases, to be outlined next week by the Legal Services Commmission, which runs legal aid, will hit vulnerable children and families. They claim the new rates will lead to barristers earning up to 30 per cent less and drive the most experienced out of legal aid work, causing delays in children and family cases.
The commission intends to move ahead with controversial plans for “reverse auctions” of legal aid contracts for police station work. The contracts will go to bidders offering “best value”, with low bids a key factor. More than 6,000 solicitors have signed up to protest on Downing Street’s website. They say that the plans will be disastrous for legal aid, drive down standards and decimate the defence service. The Conservatives have promised to suspend the reforms if they win the general election.
In an attempt to defuse the row, Lord Bach, the Justice Minister, is expected to delay the timescale for testing the plans, The Times has learnt. “The timetable is not yet fixed,” he said. He robustly defended the reform package, which is aimed at achieving value for money within a tight budget and ensuring that legal aid helps as many people as possible. “Spending on legal aid in the last 20 years has increased from £835 million in today’s prices — an average annual real terms growth of about 5 per cent — one of the fastest-growing areas of public expenditure.”
He said he was determined that criminal legal aid should not squeeze the funds available for other kinds of help, and that was behind the drive to cut costs. Convicted defendants should pay towards their own costs if they could afford it, he said. Defendants who chose not to use legal aid and were acquitted should no longer be able to claim back all their costs. But for civil cases, eligibility limits had been increased by 5 per cent to “help those most in need”. He said: “Up to 750,000 extra people could become eligible for [legal aid] help and representation.”
The Government has also boosted funding for advice centres and other “not for profit” agencies, which now stood at £80 million compared with £24 million in 2001-02.
Carolyn Regan, chief executive of the Legal Services Commission, said: “Our aim is to ensure access to justice for a greater number of people through advice, help and representation in court, from high-quality practitioners or the not-for-profit sector.” Many more people were now being helped, she said. The total had doubled in five years to more than one million.
The GOS says: Australian blogger John Ray's comment ...
"This makes the mere act of initiating a prosecution a punishment for a crime of which you may be innocent. Costs will not be awarded in your favour if you use a private lawyer rather than a government one. And the government ones are so poorly paid that only the least competent ones would take on the work. And only the poor are eligible to use a government lawyer anyway. So this is yet another sly attack on the middle class by a hate-filled Leftist government."
Our own comment is ... what's wrong with it? Surely everyone agrees that Muslims, illegal immigrants, terrorists, rapists, hoodies and drug-dealers need protecting from the law, and the rest of us don't? We can't see what all the fuss is about: this is just a necessary step in the evolution of the promised land, a land where soldiers can be prosecuted for killing people in battle, and terrorists who kill people on buses, tubes or restaurants are rewarded with council houses and state benefits.
That'll show the fucking middle classes - who the fuck do they think they are, anyway? We're in charge now!
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