Legal aid may be a tiny backwater of our public services but it holds the key to access to justice, as Jon Robins explains
“Who cares if the high street lawyers who beaver away for little reward are closed down?” asked Sir Alan Moses last week at the Vote for Justice rally in Westminster.
Who indeed? Legal aid was “at the very bottom of concern in this election”, the chairman of the new media watchdog, the Independent Press Standards Organisation, told hundreds of lawyers and campaigners. Sir Alan was one of two former Appeal judges freed from the constraints of judicial office to speak out on behalf of a justice system that was going to hell in a handcart.
Sir Anthony Hooper even called on fellow lawyers at the demo not to vote Conservative (or Lib Dem) because of the legal aid cuts (or rather “endorsed the suggestion”, as the Guardian carefully put it).
Depressing
“I’m completely depressed,” Sir Anthony told campaigners. He began his legal career 30-odd years ago with a “Rolls Royce” of a legal system but one that had
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