Posted: Friday, 4 January 2019 @ 13:43
As has been reported earlier this year, the government legal aid cuts have led to the former deputy speaker, Nigel Evans being unable to recover his £120,000 of legal costs despite being found innocent in charges of sexual assaults.
This is just one example of how the quest to save the legal aid bill as led to instances which fly in the face of justice.
It is worth reflecting what is going on in our society now and how with the cutting of the availability of legal aid it is now creating what can only be called miscarriages of justice.
Another example is this. If the state is seeking to take your child away from you, you should be entitled to legal aid irrespective of means. However, as was picked up in the Sunday Times last week, a Swindon family are not eligible for legal aid due to a loophole that means if a local authority decide to put a child up for adoption, the parents legal aid is means tested.
That means that individuals who are just above the threshold are stuck in a twilight zone where they cannot afford to pay legal fees but are just earning enough to be ineligible for legal aid.
Unsurprisingly this is leading to people seeking to represent themselves in Court. According to a freedom of information request by law firm, Slater and Gordon the majority of parents now represent themselves in Divorce Courts. We now have the DIY litigant clogging up the Court. These cases take longer as litigants struggle to understand what is going on.
Greater use of mediation may help in that disputes can be resolved sooner, but lack of effective mediators is failing to provide an effective service....Overall it is pretty depressing.