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16 February 2018 / Sir Geoffrey Bindman KC
Issue: 7781 / Categories: Features , Legal aid focus , Profession
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Opportunity knocks

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The new Lord Chancellor has a great chance to make equal access to justice a reality, as Geoffrey Bindman explains

  • Strenuous efforts from the 19th century onwards to give the poor equal access to the legal system have struggled to match the growing dominance of the commercial sector.

Our solicitor Lord Chancellor has a great opportunity. The government’s forthcoming review of LASPO (the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012) may well recommend some improvement in access to justice. One would like to see a complete reversal of the steady decline in legal aid funding and coverage which has taken place over several years, in line with the recommendations of the Law Society and the recently published report of the Bach Commission. The case for doing so is overwhelming, given the fundamental importance of maintaining the rule of law—of which equal access to the legal process is an essential component.

However, we must question whether tinkering with the legal aid system is ever going to be sufficient. The Bach report, The Right

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