The Law Society is stepping up its campaign to block coalition reforms of legal aid and civil litigation funding which it says will leave the civil justice system ‘at the edge of an abyss’.
The move comes as the House of Commons’ health committee warned this week that the government’s proposals to change the funding of clinical negligence cases could adversely affect severely injured patients.
Ahead of the second reading of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which was fast-tracked to 29 June following publication last week, the Law Society launched an interim report on Tuesday responding to the bill.
Law Society president Linda Lee said the bill was ‘littered with mistakes, inaccuracies and lacks detailed impact assessments’.
The Society’s report said: ‘This bill leaves our civil justice system at the edge of an abyss beyond which we do not know where we are destined.’
The report contains case studies of individuals who needed legal aid to obtain compensation.
At a press launch at Chancery Lane, a father whose daughter received £8m in compensation for serious injuries negligently caused during her birth explained that he would have given up his fight without legal aid funding.
Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson asked: ‘How will people like these get justice tomorrow? That is what we have asked the government and we have received a deafening silence.’
As the Gazette went to press, the Society was preparing to brief MPs on the bill at a ‘tea party’ event given the slogan ‘let them eat cake’, to be held on College Green in Westminster on Wednesday, immediately before the second reading.
Senior legal figures have joined the Society in expressing their concerns over the bill.
Speaking at a Law Society event last week, Supreme Court Justice Lady Hale said it would have a ‘disproportionate effect on the poorest and most vulnerable in society’.
There are also indications that concern may be growing within the Liberal Democrat party over some provisions of the bill.
Lib Dem MP Tom Brake, lead spokesman for the party in the Commons stages of the bill and independent of the party’s ministerial team, told the Gazette that the government must not abuse a clause in the bill that would allow legal aid to be removed from scope in more areas through a statutory instrument rather than primary legislation.
Meanwhile, the health committee criticised plans to reform the funding of clinical negligence cases.
Chair Stephen Dorrell, a Tory MP and former health secretary, said changes to conditional fee arrangements could unfairly reduce the value of settlements, and emphasised the importance of legal aid in clinical negligence.
See News Focus, Comment.
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