Irvine faces challenge over legal aid reform

By Jeremy Fleming

The Lord Chancellor could be found to have breached the Human Rights Act and the government's legal aid reforms could be crippled if the first judicial review under the Act succeeds following proceedings brought last week.

Robert Broudie, the partner with Liverpool firm RM Broudie & Co who is bringing the action, successfully judicially reviewed the former Lord Chancellor, Lord McKay, over Legal Aid regulations in 1993.

Mr Broudie's client, Terence Shields, has been accused of importing a large quantity of heroin.

On 5 October, Mr Broudie applied to Liverpool Crown court requesting legal aid to be extended to cover the services of a QC for his client.

Liverpool Crown Court refused the application, and Mr Broudie subsequently submitted an application to the Administrative Court for permission to judicially-review the decision, and to stay the proceedings.

Both were granted last week by high court judge Mr Justice Turner.

The application includes a request for a declaration that legal aid regulations introduced by the Lord Chancellor at the beginning of September are ultra vires, and in breach of article 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 - which guarantees the right to a fair trial.

Lord Irvine was one of the principal architects of the legislation.

The legal aid regulations restricted the circumstances in which legal aid could be extended to enable defendants such as Mr Shields from being represented by leading and junior counsel.

It is the first time that the Lord Chancellor has faced a judicial review of his actions on the grounds that he has breached the Act.

The Chancellor faces a separate challenge under the Act when his appeal against being liable for sex discrimination goes ahead next month.

A tribunal finding in March last year found that he had discriminated when he appointed a special adviser - Garry Hart - without advertising the post.

Jane Deighton, a partner at London firm Deighton Guedalla, said this week that she would use the Act's provisions against delay to defend the Lord Chancellor's appeal.

Rodney Warren, senior partner of Eastbourne-based Rodney Warren & Co, head of the Law Society's Access to Justice working party, and vice chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said: 'The changes have nothing to do with justice.

They are all to do with economy.

The government must realise that if you continue to load the ship of justice and at the same time take the rivets out of the hull, eventually it will sink.'A spokesman for the Lord Chancellor's Department said: 'We will, of course, be contesting this application for judicial review.

However we cannot comment on matters which are the subject of judicial consideration.'