The Joint Committee on Human Rights has voiced concerns over provision for domestic violence victims in the legal aid bill.
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill – currently at the Lords stage – makes legal aid unavailable for vast areas of civil and family law. It preserves legal aid for victims of domestic violence but uses a narrower definition of ‘domestic violence’ than that used by the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the government and practitioners in the field.
The Joint Committee noted that the evidence required to prove domestic violence was “quite restrictive”, and that the 12-month time limit would fail to protect victims where an abusive partner is due to come out of prison.
Other concerns raised by the committee included whether the Director of Legal Aid Case Work would be sufficiently independent when deciding whether to grant legal aid to cases challenging government bodies, and whether provision for funding exceptional cases potentially breached human rights.
It was concerned about the effect that provisions to make success fees and insurance premiums irrecoverable would have on clinical negligence cases and on cases brought against multinationals by claimants in developing countries.
Hywel Francis MP, the chair of the committee, said: “While we welcome the government's proposed amendments to enable victims of domestic violence to continue to obtain Legal Aid, we doubt that the Bill as drafted will achieve that aim.
“We are also concerned that the government have not demonstrated that the proposed Director of Legal Aid Casework will be sufficiently independent to ensure fair access to legal aid in cases against the Government, in the absence of a right to appeal to an independent court or tribunal.”
This week, two Conservative Peers, Lord Tebbit and Lord Newton, tabled an amendment to the Bill to retain legal aid for clinical negligence claims involving children.
