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Legal aid: humans & justice must come first

20 October 2017
Issue: 7766 / Categories: Legal News , Legal aid focus , Profession
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Successive governments have reduced legal aid to the level of ‘mundane horse trading of practical politics’, says Geoffrey Bindman QC.

In an article this week, the NLJ columnist says legal aid was dealt its heaviest blow by LASPO (Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012) but the recent Bach Commission proposal for a new Right to Justice Act offers fresh hope.

‘By a striking coincidence the constitutional supremacy of access to justice has almost simultaneously been re-asserted by the Supreme Court in Unison v Lord Chancellor [where employment tribunal fees were held to be unlawful],’ he writes. ‘In outlawing the imposition of oppressive fees in employment tribunals the court highlighted the right of all citizens to access to justice as a fundamental constitutional principle.’ (See Comment)

Issue: 7766 / Categories: Legal News , Legal aid focus , Profession
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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
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