Defendants: government Bill 'would deny access to justice'

Criminal defence solicitors have this week welcomed an opposition move in the House of Lords that could see the relaxation of government proposals to restrict defendants' rights to appeal legal aid decisions.


Debating the Criminal Defence Service Bill last week, members of the Lords cast doubt on whether the role of implementing tests on public funding eligibility should be confined to the Legal Services Commission (LSC) without recourse to the courts for appeal if clients and their lawyers did not agree with the decision.


Supporters of the current Bill suggest that the eligibility test is a case of simple calculations, and that any opportunity to seek redress from the courts could end up scuppering attempts to streamline the system owing to a flood of appeals.


But Liberal Democrat peer Lord Goodhart said there had been no evidence of abuses under the current system. 'To refuse legal aid to a defendant in a criminal case on the grounds that the defendant has failed to meet the eligibility criteria, when the defendant cannot pay for independent representation, is quite obviously a denial of access to justice,' he warned.


The Lords voted in favour of an amendment that would allow an appeal; the Bill has now gone back to the House of Commons.


Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, backed the results of the vote. 'Although the assessment of an individual's means is a matter for the LSC and the government, courts should have some overriding ability to have an input in cases where there may be a dispute,' he argued.