The Legal Services Commission have recently changed the way that legal aid is granted. Jon of Arc examines some of the pitfalls for those facing criminal sanctions in the Reading area...
Picture this – A nervous and overwhelmed individual is dragged before a court. He has spent the previous night in police custody, being interviewed about a crime he is alleged to have committed. He is tired and he is scared. He is dragged before a court, who are simply interested in getting home on time. He has no legal representation. The prosecuting solicitor wants him locked up, and launches into an eloquent tirade, using all his years of training and experience in the legal field, explaining exactly why this man should not be released. The man is asked if he has anything to say in his defence. He stutters and stumbles through a cringe worthy attempt to appeal for his freedom, ending with the words “….and, uh, sorry but this is very hard without a solicitor”. The judges feel that they have little choice but to send him to prison, and that is where he goes, bewildered and frightened.
Think this could only happen in an oppressive foreign regime? Sounds a bit Orwellian? Well, this is a scene that is occurring with alarming regularity in the Magistrates court of Reading, right now.
On October 2nd 2006, the Criminal Defence Service Act came into force. This piece of legislation was designed to reduce the amount of people who were able to claim legal aid by introducing means testing and an “interests of justice” section. People who earn over a certain amount of money and those that can’t “justify” requiring a lawyer must go before a magistrates court unrepresented, or shell out the exorbitant fees that UK criminal lawyers command (around £150-£200 an hour).
The means testing idea must have looked good on paper: Those who earn over a certain amount must now pay for their own defence. Fine, when applied to premiership footballers claiming legal aid. However, the bar to receiving legal aid has been placed at a ludicrously low level. Those earning less than £11,590 will automatically qualify. Those earning above £20,740 will automatically be disqualified. Those earning in between must have less than £3,156 annual disposable income in order to qualify. These are not high sums, but ones that would disqualify low-medium income people from being entitled to a free defence. The price of a “not guilty” plea and subsequent trial, may cost upwards of £3000, a price that many solicitors themselves would struggle to pay.
The other way people are being disqualified is in “the interests of justice”. What this involves is asking the defendant why he feels that he deserves legal representation. Suitable grounds include the likelihood of going to prison, complexity of any legal issues in the case or possibility of loss of earnings/reputation. Many people are having their applications for legal aid turned down on this part of the test, not because they are not eligible, but because they are filling the form out incorrectly. Solicitors in Reading, as a form of industrial action, are refusing to help their potential clients fill out the form. Many illiterate people are therefore unable to apply for legal aid. Does this sound like it’s in the “interests of justice” to anyone else?
Mary Keniger, Vice President of the Oxford University Amnesty International Group, stated “Ability to pay a solicitor should not be used as a basis of discrimination and I find it shocking that such vulnerable members of our society should be forced to face such difficult legal proceeding without professional advice. Article 7 of the Universal Declaration for Human rights states, ‘All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this’"
Legal Aid and representation is a right, not a privilege. Whenever a person goes before a court in England on criminal charges, they face the possibility of prison. They face a well oiled system, designed to make criminal convictions and sanctions stick. Denying any such person legal aid is not in the interests of justice, it is a travesty of justice.
Update: On December 4th and 5th, Solicitors in Reading are currently planning a two day strike. No one will be represented in the magistrates court on these days. Similar actions are planned in other parts of the country. Try not to get arrested on those days.
Think this could only happen in an oppressive foreign regime? Sounds a bit Orwellian? Well, this is a scene that is occurring with alarming regularity in the Magistrates court of Reading, right now.
On October 2nd 2006, the Criminal Defence Service Act came into force. This piece of legislation was designed to reduce the amount of people who were able to claim legal aid by introducing means testing and an “interests of justice” section. People who earn over a certain amount of money and those that can’t “justify” requiring a lawyer must go before a magistrates court unrepresented, or shell out the exorbitant fees that UK criminal lawyers command (around £150-£200 an hour).
The means testing idea must have looked good on paper: Those who earn over a certain amount must now pay for their own defence. Fine, when applied to premiership footballers claiming legal aid. However, the bar to receiving legal aid has been placed at a ludicrously low level. Those earning less than £11,590 will automatically qualify. Those earning above £20,740 will automatically be disqualified. Those earning in between must have less than £3,156 annual disposable income in order to qualify. These are not high sums, but ones that would disqualify low-medium income people from being entitled to a free defence. The price of a “not guilty” plea and subsequent trial, may cost upwards of £3000, a price that many solicitors themselves would struggle to pay.
The other way people are being disqualified is in “the interests of justice”. What this involves is asking the defendant why he feels that he deserves legal representation. Suitable grounds include the likelihood of going to prison, complexity of any legal issues in the case or possibility of loss of earnings/reputation. Many people are having their applications for legal aid turned down on this part of the test, not because they are not eligible, but because they are filling the form out incorrectly. Solicitors in Reading, as a form of industrial action, are refusing to help their potential clients fill out the form. Many illiterate people are therefore unable to apply for legal aid. Does this sound like it’s in the “interests of justice” to anyone else?
Mary Keniger, Vice President of the Oxford University Amnesty International Group, stated “Ability to pay a solicitor should not be used as a basis of discrimination and I find it shocking that such vulnerable members of our society should be forced to face such difficult legal proceeding without professional advice. Article 7 of the Universal Declaration for Human rights states, ‘All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this’"
Legal Aid and representation is a right, not a privilege. Whenever a person goes before a court in England on criminal charges, they face the possibility of prison. They face a well oiled system, designed to make criminal convictions and sanctions stick. Denying any such person legal aid is not in the interests of justice, it is a travesty of justice.
Update: On December 4th and 5th, Solicitors in Reading are currently planning a two day strike. No one will be represented in the magistrates court on these days. Similar actions are planned in other parts of the country. Try not to get arrested on those days.
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
ok
19.11.2006 22:07
jon
madness
20.11.2006 09:44
How on earth is the average family or single person ever going to afford representation on that kind of salary without incurring massive debt.
This is ridiculous, police state here we come.
RIP UK.
Sam
e-mail:
marfgtti@hotmail.com
strike?
20.11.2006 10:36
bobby
The notion of legal aid for the litigant is factually untrue
25.11.2006 13:05
Notice how the law practice careerists [legal professionals] refer to the 'criminal justice system' as different from criminal legal system.
The law society of England and Wales [113 Chancery Lane London] is about getting the maximum cash for its members. the solicitors. As is the Bar council.
The litigant, the ordinary public, are not at all the focus of any campaign to protect legal aid.
So what needs to be done to ensure that the litigants, those in the ordinary public, get their full say in court?
Not by relying on lawyers or on their professional pressure groups. Or on Mps or members of the Pee-rs House. ordinary people must find a way of mobilising permanently to monitor the lawyer corruption, the corruption of the court system and then may be after a few years of genuine and sustained constitutional agitation 'within the constitution' [that is, non-violent, peaceful and coherently conveyed action] things may change...
In the UK, we are caught up in the trap of loyalty to the careerists and to their myths and their lies.
Notice how Michael Mansfield, Helena Kennedy [and some other s mentionable like those two] the so-called progressive lawyers, are very silent on the matter of the rights of the ordinary public.
They will never be in the lucrative and cushy positions within the state that they are in - Helena Kennedy [QC, that is a barrister who by carrying the QC tag, automatically is allowed to demand a much higher sum in 'fees' than they would be were they plain barristers] is a very cosy careerist who is pals with the largest number of criminals posing as liberal advocates and champions of all descriptions - as propaganda by the status quo media
The 'guide' that the Private Eye and Guardian-plugged Heather] [another American import, showing us how to demand access to information] authored to various state bodies, contains some of the most telling violations of the rights of the people in the impoverished, lower income groups ... So it shows that there is no way that the status quo can be changed or made accountable by relying on the status quo.
The legal aid debate is a wrong debate.
Start demanding true access to the facilities of the courts.
And once inside the courts, watch out for the criminals that sit as judges or the criminals that staff the various positions.
We have a heavy load of work to do before we are able to use the law to uphold our rights or to establish rights we deserve...
justinformation