Judges accusing government of wasting legal aid budget

Judges accusing government of wasting legal aid budget

1. Court of Appeals Judges and District Judges included agree with this excluding 12 Law Lords

   • Legal aid is also there to help the poor and vunerable
   • Argument is that budgeting should not decrease and neither should the aid favour other cases over others
     • With high lawyer fees also, they believe those who need help may not receive it

2. Judges claim that hopeless asylum budgets are diminishing the legal aid budget

   • Judges also say that legal aid is given readily to hopeless cases
     • The LSC does not agree with this statement
   • Family legal aid and asylum aid has increased over time while aid for the vunerable and poor and decreased
     • From 1195-6 to 2004-5 asylum aid increased from 24 million to 184 million
       • Judges say the demands of family, criminal and asylum legal aid is uncontrolled and swelling
     • From 1995-6 to 2004-5 family legal aid went from 373 million to 452 million
   • Judges say the people in charge of allocating the legal aid budget do not have the legal expertise to make a decision on who should receive it for appeals
   • Success rate of asylum cases in COA is 3%

3. Legal aid budget for poor and vunerable decreased by over 150 million over 10 years

   • The LSC have claimed that spending will decrease dramatically over the coming years by around 140 million
     • Reductions are taking place due to reforms in the legal structure of legal aid

4. Judges are blaming Labour party and Tory Adminstration

   • Due to this they say that legal aid system has been brought down to its knees in the last 20 years