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The legal aid challenge

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16 December 2016 / Sir Geoffrey Bindman KC
Issue: 7727 / Categories: Opinion , Legal aid focus , Profession
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Can Lord Bach produce a viable blueprint for a fair system of justice, asks Geoffrey Bindman QC

The commission on access to justice initiated a year ago by the Labour party under the leadership of Lord Bach, a former justice minister and shadow attorney-general, has issued an interim report (see “Bach for good”, Jon Robins, NLJ, 9 December 2016, p 7). The crisis in the justice system has been building over several years and there is no magic solution. Yet Bach makes a good start by identifying the problems and charting the direction of travel towards the realisation of the ideals embodied in Magna Carta and developed in the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949. It promises a final report in another year.

In his introduction Bach cites Magna Carta’s famous chapter 40: “To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, justice or right.” This chapter remains part of our law to this day. The 1949 Act was intended to give effect

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