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Sunday, November 2, 2014

Access to justice is the foundation of democracy



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“Ministers keep using the mantra that their proposals are to protect the most vulnerable when, quite obviously, they are the exact opposite. If implemented their measures would, far from protecting the most vulnerable, directly harm them. Whatever they do in the end, Her Majesty’s Government should stop this 1984 Orwellian-type misuse of language.”  – Lord Bach, discussing the Legal Aid Bill.
Source: Hansard, Column 1557, 19 May, 2011.

The Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949 was a British Act of Parliament which extended the welfare state to ensure that those unable to pay for a solicitor were able to access free legal help, it was designed and implemented to allow poor and vulnerable people to have genuine access to justice.

Massive funding reductions, implemented through the contested and controversial Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, (LAPSO)removed in one fell swoop public funding for huge and…

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