On Friday 19 September the High Court will consider whether to grant permission for Rights of Women’s legal challenge of the lawfulness of Government changes to legal aid to be heard. These changes are preventing victims of domestic abuse from getting legal aid for family cases, even when it is clear there has been violence, or there is an ongoing risk of violence. Represented by the Public Law Project and supported by the Law Society, Rights of Women argue that this is not what parliament intended.
PLP is recruiting a trainee solicitor through the Justice First Fellowship; a scheme which has been established to help talented law students establish sustainable careers with a focus on access to justice. The Scheme has been established by The Legal Education Foundation, in partnership with other funding organisations in the social welfare law sector.
In a powerful judgment delivered today the Divisional Court has confirmed that Government proposals to introduce a “residence test” for civil legal aid are unlawful. The thrust of those proposals was to prevent those who could not prove 12 months lawful residence in the UK from accessing the legal aid scheme.
The Public Law Project has produced a further briefing regarding measures in Part 4 of the Criminal Justice & Courts Bill relating to Judicial Review.
The Law Society is supporting a challenge brought by the Public Law Project on behalf of Rights of Women, over the lawfulness of Government changes to legal aid which are preventing victims of domestic abuse from getting legal aid for family cases, even when it is clear there has been violence, or there is an ongoing risk of violence. Rights of Women argue that this is not what parliament intended.
"Unjustified", with "significant implications for effective access to justice" and " problematic from the point of view of the rule of law". The Joint Committee on Human Rights today released a strident report on the Government’s judicial review reforms. Following on from last year’s damning report into the implications for access to justice arising out of the Government’s previous tranche of legal aid cuts, including the residence test for civil legal aid, today’s report undermines the Lord Chancellor’s rationale for the ongoing judicial review reforms, both the changes to the payment regime for judicial review work that came into effect on 22 April 2014 and the measures in part 4 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill currently going through Parliament, and warns of their consequences.
New payment arrangements for publicly funded judicial review cases came into force this Tuesday.
The Public Law Project has released briefing papers for parliamentarians and civil society organisations (CSO’s) on the judicial review reforms included in the Criminal Justice & Courts Bill currently being debated in Parliament. Judicial review is a vital tool to hold public bodies to account, and the effect of the Bill would serve to insulate unlawful executive action from judicial scrutiny.
Topic: Inclusive Education: what will Children & Families Act and other educational reforms mean for inclusive education? How can we use the law and the UNCRPD to protect and promote inclusive education?
Speakers: David Wolfe: Barrister Matrix Chambers; Jane McConnell from IPSEA (tbc) & Simone Aspis Campaigns Officer at Alliance for Inclusive Education
The government has published both its response to the consultation, and the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, which intends to implement the response through legislation.
PLP’s client ZZ has won an appeal in the Court of Appeal and judgment was handed down today (24 January 2014). The Court of Appeal ruled that the Special Immigration Appeal Commission’s (SIAC) reliance on secret evidence, in cases concerning EU citizens who have exercised rights of free movement in the UK, in deciding whether an EU citizen poses a risk to national security, fails to comply with EU law and that as a bare minimum, the essence of the grounds of the national security case must always be disclosed to the EU citizen.
PLP has been granted permission to challenge the introduction of the residence test for legal aid. The proposed test would exclude from entitlement to civil legal aid those people with strong cases but no money to pay for legal representation, who (a) are not lawfully resident in the UK and (b) have not been lawfully resident for 12 months.