Access to justice is kicking off debate in 2013, notes Jon Robins
“The notion of ‘access to justice’ is somewhat totemic,” begins a new paper by Prof Stephen Mayson published by the Legal Services Institute (LSI) last month. Indeed. But what does it actually mean? It is “often easier to say what it is not rather than what it is”, the paper continues.
Mindful of Ken Clarke’s disingenuous assertion (at the launch of the LASPO bill) that “access to justice” was “the hallmark of a civilised society”, there has to be a pretty strong case to be made for this rather opaque phrase to be permanently decommissioned.
Professor Mayson (together with policy assistant Olivia Marley and senior policy adviser Stella Dunn) was looking at the phrase in the context of the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA 2007), which has “improving ‘access to justice’” as a regulatory objective. It’s there in s 1.
Conspicuous failing
A conspicuous failing in the “access to justice” debate has been that the phrase has become equated with a far narrower idea—“access to lawyers”—and, too often
