Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has fired out a replacement consultation on criminal legal aid – a week after the High Court found he acted unlawfully by suppressing the findings of two key reports in the earlier consultation.
The new consultation, on duty solicitor reforms, will last just three weeks. Last week, Mr Justice Burnett ruled Grayling’s decision to withhold the two reports until after the consultation “so unfair as to be unlawful”, and quashed Grayling’s decision to cut the number of contracts for duty solicitor work.
Nicola Hill, President of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association, said: “It seems a little odd and surprising that within this new mini-consultation, there’s not a whiff or a word of last week’s shaming judicial review. The turnaround on this re-consultation is tight by any stretch. We don’t want to be too cynical but we really hope it’s not a tokenistic, paper exercise.”
Richard Miller, Law Society head of legal aid, said solicitors now had an “opportunity to spell out to ministers the reality on the ground”.
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