Public Law Project is delighted to have been shortlisted for the 2019 Law Society Excellence Awards in the Excellence in Access to Justice category. Our entry highlighted PLP’s unique ability to draw on casework, research and training, as well as our partnership approach to working with frontline charities and civil society, to improve access to
Following a legal challenge brought by the Children’s Society and supported by PLP, the Ministry of Justice has drafted legislation to make it easier for migrant children who have been separated from their families to access legal aid to resolve their immigration matters. The draft legislation was submitted to Parliament on 22 July. The report
Public Law Project (PLP) Legal Director Alison Pickup gave a talk on the cost barriers to accessing judicial review at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights conference earlier this year. Alison’s talk focussed on the importance of introducing special costs rules for judicial review as a way of improving access to justice and the ability
PLP has now finished phase one of its settled status research project. The first phase of research aimed to model how the scheme is designed, and to provide a detailed analysis of its possible strengths and weaknesses. The findings of this first phase of research are written up in a report by PLP’s Research Director
A Freedom of Information request by Public Law Project has revealed that the Government lost or disposed of the only record of a meeting between its lawyers and Sir Rupert Jackson at which they discussed costs measures designed to improve access to judicial review. The FOI request was submitted by PLP’s Research Director Joe Tomlinson
In the run up to this year’s London Pride, Public Law Project (PLP) renewed calls on the Home Secretary to clear the names of men convicted for the historic gay sex offence of ‘importuning’. In a letter to the Home Office on behalf of veteran gay rights campaigner Terry Stewart, PLP has demanded that the
Is the Government serious about access to justice? A new blog by PLP’s Deputy Legal Director Sara Lomri explains why access to judicial review is for most people now a distant reality and why the latest costs consultation suggests that the Government is ignoring the financial obstacles that prevent people from challenging unlawful decision-making. She
The final hearing took place in the High Court this week (18 June) to determine the lawfulness of the Home Office Removal Notice Window (RNW) policy. The court suspended the ‘no-warning’ practice in March this year following a challenge by Medical Justice amid fears that migrants were being denied a fair chance to put their
Our equality laws are fragile – Dame Laura Cox QC Former Justice of the High Court, Dame Laura Cox DBE opened the Public Law Project’s inaugural Discrimination Law conference this week by sharing her view on why our equality laws are still fragile nearly ten years on from the 2010 Equality Act. Dame Laura’s wide-ranging
PLP’s response outlines why the Government’s indication that it will not consult on extending QOCS or the Aarhus rules is cause for concern, and why relying on CCOs to mitigate access to justice concerns is inadequate. PLP is gravely concerned that the Government is giving insufficient priority to the principle of access to justice and
One of PLP’s five strategic focus areas is benefit sanctioning. We are particularly concerned with the lawfulness of sanctioning and the effect this has on marginalised people. In this article PLP solicitor Sarah Clarke considers whether benefit sanctioning, particularly for people who are not well enough to work, could constitute inhuman and degrading treatment in
The Public Law Project’s (PLP) collaborative approach to public law has featured in a case study of the landmark legal challenge to the personal independence payments scheme, a case that changed the assessment criteria for thousands of people on disability benefits. The research carried out by Dr Lisa Vanhala and Dr Jacqui Kinghan of UCL