Saving legal aid: Save Justice calls for justice ambassadors

The government has announced that it is proposing to make significant changes to legal aid and judicial review. These changes are complex and will be far reaching in their effects.

Despite the clear intention to rush the proposals through Parliament (without proper parliamentary debate), the proposals have nonetheless generated widespread disapproval and concern. Just a small selection of those who have expressed their alarm include: the head of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger; MPs across all of the major parties in the House of Commons; and even the government's own lawyers – who have described the proposals as being “unconscionable”.

Among the areas of chief concern are proposed changes to judicial review, the creation of a 'residence test', plans to remove almost all legal aid from those in prison (for matters relating to their incarceration), and plans to make huge cuts to the funding for criminal legal aid.

Legal aid is there to make sure that people can get justice even when they do not have the financial means to pay for it. We at Save Justice are deeply concerned that if enacted, these proposals will withdraw a vital lifeline from the very people who have the greatest need of the protection of the law and the courts - those who are often most vulnerable, including survivors of torture.

It is often said that you can judge a society by how it treats its prisoners. Withdrawing legal aid for prisoners would be a case of the government hiding those held in its prisons from view by depriving their access to the courts to protect their basic rights and challenge any abuses that may occur. Prisoners, politically undesirable as they may be to politicians, still have need of the protection of the law - whether it is to challenge the separation of mothers from their babies, or the treatment of prisoners with mental or physical health problems. Removing that legal protection will mean that individuals who are being held within the closed prison environment (and are therefore entirely under the state's control) could become subject to treatment falling well short of international standards, without the ability to do anything about it.

By limiting the opportunity to make applications for judicial review, the government would be removing the means by which ordinary people use the courts to keep the government in check (eg, when powerful state bodies such as the police have failed to follow the law).

By introducing a 'residence test', anyone who cannot prove that they have had 12 months lawful residence in the United Kingdom (but can prove that they are lawfully resident at the time) would not be able to get a legal aid lawyer to enable them to secure any of their civil rights. This 'test' will create an underclass of people who will be pushed outside of the protection of the law and the courts. Many consider that this sets a dangerous constitutional precedent. Who is next to be excluded from the rule of law?

For survivors of torture, the 'residence test' could well prove disastrous. As Freedom from Torture's 'Poverty Barrier' research highlights, under these proposals survivors would have no means of bringing legal challenges to delays in the provision of status papers or, in the year before the residence test is met, no means of securing access to their entitlements to welfare, housing and community care support. The level of destitution and homelessness for survivors of torture during this time would worsen, with a significant impact on survivors' short and long-term rehabilitation.

The plans will also mean that those held unlawfully in detention, such as survivors of torture, will not be able to bring claims for compensation and redress (which many consider to be the only restraining influence on the government practice of immigration detention).

Under these proposals, the recent case that unearthed serious sexual abuse by staff at Yarls Wood presents a good example of the kind of case which would not even make it as far as a court room.

We do not consider that these proposals are what the United Kingdom needs, nor are they what the British people want. They are unlikely to make the savings claimed and, in fact, would appear to cost much more money than they would save.

As Mike Fordham QC put it at a demonstration that we organised on 4 June 2013 outside the Ministry of Justice: "Legal aid is at the beating heart of the rule of law […] what could matter more than those who are disadvantaged and those who are marginalised having effective legal protection? [If] the state is up against you, it will have the lawyers it chooses every time. But what about you, when you are being prosecuted or having your rights taken away or in detention?"

Isaac Shaffer is a founding member of Save Justice.

Save Justice is coordinating a national postcard campaign against the proposed changes to legal aid and judicial review. They are still recruiting justice ambassadors to spread the word about the issue and to help get as many people as possible to sign a specially designed postcard targeting Nick Clegg, asking him to stand up for legal aid. All signed postcards are then to be returned to Save Justice by 15 November 2013, and to be delivered to Nick Clegg  in one go for maximum impact.

Email Save Justice at [email protected] to apply to become a justice ambassador (and follow @savejusticeuk on Twitter for more details of the ongoing campaign).