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 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.
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.
Topic: Under attack: disabled peoples access to justice. Update on what is happening and how we can respond
Speakers: Nick Armstrong: Barrister Matrix Chambers; Ravi Low-Beer: The Public Law Project and disability rights campaigners (tbc)
From LAG’s website:
The independent commission established by LAG and led by the cross-bench peer Lord Low has published its report today, 9th January. The Commission is calling for urgent reforms to ensure ordinary people can get the help they need to deal with employment, debt, housing and other social welfare law problems.
This report is taken largely from the Joint select Committee’s own pages at Parliament.uk
The Court of Appeal today (4 December 2013) rejected the Government’s appeal against a landmark ruling by the Upper Tribunal that the Work Capability Assessment discriminates against people with mental health problems. Ravi Low-Beer, of The Public Law Project, acted as the claimant’s solicitor.