Introduction
The Bill. The Government has recently published the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (“the Bill”). Part 1 of the Bill, in conjunction with schedules 1 to 3, makes reforms to legal aid, including cutbacks in civil legal aid as envisaged in the Ministry of Justice consultation paper CP 12/10 (November 2010). Part 2 of the Bill changes the law in respect costs and funding. Some of the provisions in Part 2 implement recommendations which I made in the Costs Review Final Report. In particular, Part 2 ends the recoverability of success fees under conditional fee agreements (“CFAs”) and the recoverability of After-the-Event (“ATE”) insurance premiums. Part 3 deals with criminal law.
Law Society campaign. The Chief Executive of the Law Society recently wrote to many senior solicitors as follows:
“On Wednesday 29 June the government placed the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of the Offenders Bill before the House of Commons. I am therefore taking this opportunity to update you about the Law Society’s response to this and our campaign to maintain access to justice and address both the Jackson proposals and changes to legal aid.
I am sure that like me, you entered the legal profession out of a passionate belief in justice and the rule of law and, although individual careers may have taken different directions, amongst all solicitors that passion remains strong. Access to justice is vital because it is central to the Law Society’s public interest mission and our founding purpose of serving the law and justice, so that everyone can be equal under the law.
Legal aid clients are some of the most vulnerable in society and, as our President, Linda Lee says, ‘good legal representation where required is essential if they are to be able effectively to enforce and defend their rights. Without that ability, the rule of law is meaningless.’
As well, the development of law on protections, compensations and justice for victims of medical negligence and disasters will grind to a halt. Although only the poorest qualify for civil legal aid, the advances in case law have improved protections for everyone – legal aid was critical to the victims of the Hillsborough disaster, thalidomide, the Clapham rail crash, improving rented housing stock and the behaviours of ‘Rachman – style’ landlords and reducing medical negligence.
In the Bill the Government also confirms its plans to make sweeping changes to the way civil litigation is funded. The right to recover the solicitors’ success fees and ATE premiums from unsuccessful defendants is to be removed. This will mean that many victims who have been injured as a result of someone else’s negligence are likely to lose more than 25% of their compensation. This is unacceptable in a modern society.
The Law Society believes the government is making grave errors in these areas. That’s why we’ve mounted the high profile campaign ‘Sound off for Justice’, to make the government think again about their proposals before it is too late. We passionately believe that the cuts to legal aid and the proposed changes to litigation costs and funding will cause many unintended consequences to families, individuals and businesses in the UK. Moreover, we think they fail at a basic financial level, leading to extra costs to government in other departments.”
The letter then goes on to advise solicitors how to lobby MPs, download campaign material and so forth.
Comment. In this letter and in many other campaigning documents the proposed cuts in legal aid and the Jackson reforms are treated as if they are a composite package. This is not correct. It is true that the legal aid cuts and the Jackson reforms are being dealt with in the same Bill, but that is a matter of convenience. It is not because they form a composite package.
