Jon Robins laments the foreseeable consequences of the MoJ’s legal aid vanishing act
“What would a progressive government need to do, to ensure access to justice for social welfare in the 21st century?” This is the slightly unwieldy subtitle to a new study (Magna Carta today?) published earlier this month by Unite, the country’s largest union, and Goldsmiths, University of London, which outlines a seven-point plan to give greater access to justice to the thousands of people hit by the government’s Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO).
What, indeed? As I have written before in this column, Labour’s shadow justice team has pledged to look again at cuts to the criminal legal aid budget, but have made no such commitment to review the civil cuts of April 2013. So what might other “progressive” parties do? “Reverse all of the cuts,” replied Charley Pattison, criminal defence barrister and a spokesperson for the Greens on justice issues. It’s an admirably straight response (but, then again, easy for the Greens to say).
Election countdown
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