When it comes to high political office, Jonathan Djanogly may be yesterday’s news, but his legacy continues to live on.

The former justice minister says so himself, in a revealing interview on his time in Whitehall.

Djanogly, who left the Ministry of Justice in 2012, tells the Institute for Government thinktank that he ‘reformed’ civil legal aid through 25% cuts, closed a quarter of the nation’s courts, prepared the reforms to criminal legal aid, overhauled the family courts and changed the rules on civil costs and fees.

Constitutional historians will enjoy Djanogly’s insights into how his boss Kenneth Clarke ran the department and the joys and frustrations of dealing with the civil service.

But Obiter can’t help feeling Djanogly is a little selective with the elements he picks out as successes from his two years as minister.

While the government ‘didn’t lose a single judicial review’ following the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) on his watch, the High Court this year ruled that the legal aid ‘safety net’ scheme of exceptional case funding was unlawful.

Indeed, Djanogly’s suggestion to the IfG that ‘we got through pretty cleanly and [LASPO] is standing the test of time’ is one Gazette readers may wish to debate. 

In February the House of Commons public accounts committee accused the MoJ of ‘considerable gaps’ in its understanding of the reforms, with chair Margaret Hodge saying it was ‘deeply disturbing’ that reforms were based on cost-cutting rather than evidence.

Just a month later, the justice committee said removing legal aid from many civil cases had caused a ‘substantial’ increase in the number of litigants in person, growing pressure on the courts, a fall in mediation and troubling reports of ‘advice deserts’.

These critiques were within two years of LASPO coming into force – just how long can legislation hold out before it is said to have stood the test of time?

Djanogly also paints himself as the motorists’ friend, with LASPO cutting car insurance premiums ‘by 25%’.

Given such success, Obiter does wonder why it is necessary to impose more reforms, as George Osborne proposed last month, to cut insurance premiums.

It is also intriguing to know where such claims come from: the Association of British Insurers’ own stats show that motor polices were almost back to pre-LASPO levels within two years of the legislation. Perhaps not as much of an achievement as Djanogly thinks.

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