The beginning of the issues Flashcards
Legal Aid
- Money set aside by the government to allow the covering of legal costs for those who wouldn’t be able to cover them
- Since 2010 the amount of legal aid available has changed dramatically
what is legal aid
- 1949 the legal aid and advice act enshrined both criminal and civil aid
- From 1960, criminal legal aid became far more popular with the into of the means test and interests of justice test
- Duty solicitor’s introduction in1984 and 1986 pushed this cost up higher
legal aid is there to save you
- Lawyers are expensive
- Instructing someone to defend you in a criminal case is enough to remortgage/sell you house/sell cars
- Legal aid stepped in, allowing you to have money to instruct lawyers to have duty solicitors or to have your costs reimbursed
what happened in 1999
a cap was put on spending in an attempt to prevent costs spiralling, which failed dramatically and in 2010 the annual cost of legal aid was 1.2 billion
- What followed was a serious of major mistakes and smear campaigns, leaving our access liberty threatened
2010 cuts to justice
- 2010 ushered in budget cuts and austerity that threatened most elements of the CJS
- With the exception of department of working pensions the CJS the second most cut sector of government
- Legal aid was very quickly cut
the 2011 report
claimed that we spent more money per capita than any country in the world and therefore should reduce this
The reality of this report was the world was 8 countries with varying legal systems
impact of 2011 report
- The impact on legal aid was immediate
- When a different report was published in 2012, our spending was revealed to be about 0.33% of the entire public budget as percentage of GDP per capita (how much spent per person) was 0.33% - less than Monaco, more than Lithuania
the innocence tax- 2012
- Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) 2012 made all of the changes which were enough to destroy Legal Aid as we knew it
- It uprooted all civil legal aid – removing the option for the most vulnerable areas including family law, housing immigration and medical negligence
criminal law in 2012
ruled that if you decide to use private practice you cannot recoup any of that costs regardless of outcome (despite the standard of legal exp which exists in public lawyers)
the means test, 2014
if you earnt £37,500 you were excluded form legal aid
- To make up for this they relaxed another decision meaning if you were above this threshold you could claim for costs up to the legal aid amount, this leaves a defendant ten of thousands of pounds of pocket
diversity- and the issue of judging those whose lives you do not understand
- The judicial system has its issues with diversity, as will be discussed but when your main point of existence is to represent society- the diversity needs to exist
- 1% of M are under 30
- 10% declare themselves as BAME
- 4% identify as disabled
- Most present as middle class and there is a significant lack of equal rep by sexuality
The problem - The problem with lack of diversity is that MC try 94% of cases, they are entirely uneducated, frequently ignore their legal advice, cannot relate to those in front of them and are generally dangerous to the idea of justice
CC vs MC
- It is the right of a defendant to choose where they hear their case if it is TEW- the chances of acquittal in CC is 23%- almost a quarter more likely to be acquitted
- There are a few reasons for this, including a lack of understanding from MC, ignorance and different attitudes to. Sentencing. And punishment
- There is no area of life where we allow amateurs to ‘just have a go’ - no surgery where you get to operate after 18 hours of training, no train drivers who get to drive because they used to commute a lot and know the journey – MC allow people to decide the guilt of other people with just 18hrs of training
why we still use MC
1) More TEW cases are being blocked from going to CC, so they must be tried in MC
2) The MC sentence will be doubled to 12 months rather than 6 months
3) The right to appeal to CC following sentencing could be removed
