Family lawyers’ group Resolution has slated the Justice Secretary’s “bullish and unapologetic” response to a critical Justice Committee report on the legal aid cuts.
Justice Secretary Michael Gove said he did not accept the Justice Committee’s findings that the Ministry had “largely failed to achieve [its] wider objectives for reform beyond achieving savings”, in his response to the Committee’s report into the impact of the changes to civil legal aid under Part 1 of LASPO (Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act), published this week.
Instead, “unnecessary and adversarial litigation at public expense [had] been reduced”, he said, while funding had been targeted at those most in need. The reforms had been “expressly designed to make sure that we meet our legal commitments”, he said, and the exceptional case funding scheme made sure funding would continue to be made available “where its absence would breach or would risk breaching” European Convention rights or EU law.
However, Resolution chairman Jo Edwards hit back: “While there have been some welcome concessions recently, such as widening the domestic violence evidence requirements, much more needs to be done, quickly, to protect access to justice for the vulnerable.
“We strongly advocate, at the very least, that the government take heed of the committee’s recommendation that legislation be drafted to protect vulnerable people from being cross-examined by the person who abused them, which is tantamount to a perpetuation of the abuse.
“That this situation, long legislated against in the criminal courts, should continue to exist in our family justice system is a travesty.”
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