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)
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