Paul Johnson, of Brown Turner Ross, on the impact of Legal Aid changes

THE recent announcement by the Coalition Government will be the single biggest reform of the Legal Aid system in its 30-year history.

While only in the consultation stages now, the impact would be to remove access to Legal Aid in most Family Proceedings, particularly (although not exclusively), Divorce Proceedings and in relation to Private Law Contact Disputes, save for in very exceptional cases. My concern is this will leave people, some of whom are among the most vulnerable in our society, in a position where they will be unable to obtain representation and result in the limiting of people’s access to justice. The Government’s suggestion is that such disputes will have to be resolved through alternative dispute resolution such as mediation.

The Government appears to ignore that attempts at alternatives, including mediation, has been a pre-requisite in applying for legal aid in such cases for some time; and, in many cases, mediation is found to be unsuitable. For example, in, say, a dispute between parents over contact arrangements, mediation cannot force an unreasonable parent to be reasonable.

Perhaps the Government’s starting point in undertaking this review should be to start at the current, overly bureaucratic arrangements for administrating the system of legal aid, which in itself wastes millions. I agree there needs to be a review and changes are inevitable, but surely not to the point of removing people’s fundamental right to access to justice.