What now for the victims of the legal aid cuts, asks Roger Smith
Labour’s Lord Bach fought a good deal harder in the House of Lords to defend legal aid from the coalition’s cuts than many of his colleagues. But, the key provisions of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 are now in force. Civil legal aid will never again have the comprehensive coverage that once it did: in particular, partners whose relationships break down are going to have a particularly hard time. No government, realistically, is going to restart funding at past levels. What can be done to assist the women who are most likely to be the major victims of these cuts?
Self-representation
Many more litigants will have to represent themselves. Sir Alan Ward let rip on the consequences in a well publicised judgment (Colin Wright v M Wright Supplies and another [2013] EWCA Civ 234). He was particularly incensed by the judicial time that will now have to be expended on litigants in person,
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