Report to the People
Legal Aid
What’s the difference between a dead rat in the middle of the road and a dead lawyer? There are skid marks in front of the rat.
Throughout the ages, no profession (apart, perhaps, from politicians and estate agents) has been the target of more public ill will. The irony, of course, is that if we cannot engage the services of our learned "friends" when we need them, we regard it as an infringement of our human rights.
And rightly so. Access to justice – using the legal system to exercise your rights – underpins democracy. However, for too long the perception has been that, because of the cost of legal action and legal aid rules, this is only available to the very rich and the very poor.
Last year, therefore, the Scottish Parliament’s Justice 1 Committee carried out an Inquiry into the way legal aid works and, last Wednesday, the whole Parliament had the chance to debate their findings.
The central recommendation was that, to increase the number of poorer people who can bring a civil legal action, the amount of disposable capital you can have before being required to make some contribution to the cost of your case – known as the lower capital limit – should be raised.
The Committee also wanted to see a number of other changes designed to make sure legal aid rules help rather than hinder justice. The scope of legal aid, they argued, should be widened to allow voluntary groups such as Community Councils or other representative organisations to bring collective actions. Legal aid should also, it was suggested, be available for a wider range of tribunals and panels and for small claims actions.
The hard, detailed work done by the Parliament’s Committees usually gets results – but not usually so quickly. Rising to make his contribution, the Justice Minister announced that plans were in hand to change the legal aid eligibility rules.
The lower capital limit will, he told the chamber, rise from £3,000 to £6,000. The upper limit – above which civil legal aid is not available – will rise from £8,560 to £10,000. Similarly, the limit on the amount of disposable capital you can have and still qualify for Advice and Assistance will rise from £1,000 to £1,300.
There is, as always, a balance to be struck. None of us would be happy if our hard earned taxes were spent funding frivolous or trivial cases. But legal aid should be available for those who need it to right important wrongs.
After all, a right you cannot enforce is no right at all.
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