The UN expert on extreme poverty has identified the ‘gutting’ of legal aid as a result of the LASPO cuts as a part of his blistering critique of the ‘dismantling’ of the social safety net. At the end of his two-week visit to the UK, Philip Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and
Judge crowdfunds whistleblowing case The first judge to take a whistleblowing appeal to the supreme court launched a crowdfunding campaign to test the employment rights of judges, reported Owen Bowcott in the Guardian. Apparently, Claire Gilham, a district judge at Warrington county court, raised concerns about ‘overwork, death threats and bullying, as well as austerity’
‘Untold damage’ had been caused by disclosure failings, according to the Attorney General’s review published yesterday. Geoffrey Cox QC said: ‘For too long, disclosure has been seen as an administrative add on rather than fundamental pillar of our justice system. This ends now.’ Cox called for a ‘zero-tolerance’ culture within the Crown Prosecution Service and
Bullying is everywhere in the news at the moment. Not least because reports of it have reached the higher echelons of power including the House of Commons. Dame Laura Cox found there a ‘culture, cascading from the top down, of deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence, in which bullying and sexual harassment have been able to
When the accessibility of justice is threatened, considerable strain is placed on legal definitions. Such definitions carve out the boundaries of, for example, eligibility for increased welfare support. They may provide justification for expressions of leniency or severity in legal responses, or act as a ringfence for legal issues which will be addressed outside of
Conveyor belt justice I spent a day at Stratford Housing Centre in east London shadowing Simon Mullings, the housing duty adviser as part of the new Justice in a Time of Austerity project supported by LegalVoice. The article ran in New Law Journal here. On a busy day Mullings can see as many as 20 people. ‘It can
MPs called on ministers to restore funding for early legal advice as well as welfare advice as a matter of urgency. The Labour MP Andy Slaughter, who opened the three-hour long Westminster debate last week, claimed that the aim to reduce the legal aid budget under LASPO had been ‘overachieved’, whilst the reforms had ‘underachieved in every other
The Legal Services Board has approved the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s controversial proposals to allow solicitors to freelance and offer paid-for legal services through any business as part of its ‘Looking to the Future’ reforms. The approval came in the face of opposition from the Law Society who called the decision ‘a serious error’. According to the
Better late than never #1 Kicking off a Westminster Hall debate on legal aid yesterday, the Labour MP Andy Slaughter called on the government to ‘tackle the funding issue head on’. ‘No one is saying that all the cuts since 2010 will be reversed, or that the clock will be turned back, but if the
The right to fair trial should require the right to access legal representation (see Golder v UK ECHR 21 Feb 1975) and it could be argued that an inability to access legal representation because of restrictions on legal aid undermines this important right. Lauren Cooper on her new research into publicly funded asylum work. In
