The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
received royal assent on Tuesday 1 May, signalling the final stage
in its passage through parliament, which began in June 2011.
The Law Society has been campaigning both publically via the
Sound Off For Justice campaign and behind the scenes to influence
the final outcome of the Act - which changes the scope of
legal aid and reforms civil litigation funding arrangements -
since it first emerged as a consultation document in November
2010.
Thanks to the significant pressure exerted by the Society and
its fellow campaigners, the government did concede on several
important points during the passage of the bill.
In part one of the act, this includes:
- recognising the potential for political interference in the
work of the director of legal aid casework
- expanding the range of evidence accepted for the purposes of
proving domestic violence in a private family law case
- conceding that legal aid must be available for social welfare
entitlement appeals in the higher courts
- removing provisions providing a power to means test legal
advice in the police station
- retaining legal aid for clinical negligence involving babies up
to eight weeks old
- preserving legal aid for victims of human trafficking.
The government also left the door open for areas of law to be
brought back into scope via regulations in the future.
In part two, the government:
- guaranteed that the new regime of qualified one-way costs
shifting will not be means tested and will not have a minimum
value
- conceded that it was inappropriate to include cases where
mesothelioma victims are seeking damages until after a review
investigating the impact of the reforms on such claims had been
published
- conceded that the part 2 reforms should not be implemented
until April 2013, alongside the legal aid reforms
Royal assent does not signal the end of the Society's work in
relation to the Act. Many provisions, such as the proposed
telephone gateway for accessing legal aid, will be implemented via
regulations and the Society will monitor these closely to ensure
that access to justice is not undermined.
The Society's public affairs and policy staff are now also
focused on repairing relationships with the Ministry of Justice,
whose plans were so heavily criticised during the passage of the
Act, so that in the future the Society is able to influence the
shape of legislation affecting the legal sector before, as well as
after, it is introduced.