- Target:
- Ministry of Justice
- Region:
- United Kingdom
The Ministry of Justice is consulting on proposals to scale back the provision of legal aid. The reform will leave large areas of civil and family law outside the scope of legal aid reducing access to justice and placing the vulnerable at risk.
The proposals regarding criminal, family and civil fees will make legal aid uneconomic for many and will result in large numbers of practitioners leaving this practice area.
Overall the public will suffer a reduction in quality of service provided by a profession that will be less representative of the people it serves.
We, the undersigned, believe in equal access to high quality legal services. The Ministry of Justice's proposals to reform legal aid are arbitrary, ill-considered and will erode quality.
The removal of funding for vital areas of law will create advice deserts removing protection for the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.
We believe that several proposals will in fact lead to further costs being incurred in both legal aid and in Her Majesty's Court Service.
We call upon the government to work with the lawyers and experts who know the system best in order to find savings within the system so that we can continue to provide this crucial service to those who need it most.
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The Support Legal Aid Reform petition to Ministry of Justice was written by Nichola Higgins and is in the category Law Reform at GoPetition.