CJS

Ans.
Civil justice system (CJS) provides a systematic structure to resolve disputes between
private individuals. It also provides awareness about a person’s legal rights, entitlements and
responsibilities. it is said that a person knowing his legal rights and hold other to their legal
responsibility is what underpins the rule of law and according to Lord Bingham, “a well
functioning CJS upholds the rule of law” he also stated that a well functioning CJS resolves
the disputes in less time period and cost effectively also it was said by courts that access to
justice is the constitutional right of a person and is given weight in the common law hence, it
can be said that every person has a right to access to justice however, Legal Aid, Sentencing
and Punishment Act 2012 (LASPO) hindered the access to justice and was merely a hurdle
for people who wanted this right
it is the responsibility of the government to provide access to justice to the citizens which
means that citizens should have;1. awareness about legal rights , 2. awareness about the
procedure through which these rights may be readdressed and 3. access to courts and in
accordance with this the World Justice Project identified 5 elements of CJS which make up
a well functioning CJS which are; 1, Accessibility, 2. Affordability, 3. Impartiality, 4.
Effectiveness and 5. Cultural Incompetence. since, the accessibility and affordability are to
some extent same, if the government provided right to access to justice to its citizen, the first
2 elements will be fulfilled so the United Kingdom’s government introduced Legal Aid and
Advice Act 1949 in which financial help was give to those people of the society who were
vulnerable and could not afford the cost of litigations so on the expense of public i.e tax
revenue, the government provided support to poor so that they can have access to justice
hence resulting in increase of accessibility and affordability.
As the time passed on, legal aid became one of the most comprehensive schemes throughout
the world by covering most of the civil and criminal cases in all courts including the House
of Lords/ Supreme Court. There were many advice centres opened and some lawyers also
provided private legal aid. So it was evident that by the help of legal aid there were many
positive changes being noticed especially, it benefited the most vulnerable people in the
society. However, the cost of Legal Aid increased to 2 billion pounds so the policy of the
United Kingdom’s government shifted to reducing the cost where in 2012, a large blow in
the cost was noticed by the introduction of Legal Aid Sentencing and Offenders Act 2012
(LASPO).
As evident from above, there were effects of LASPO. We shall be discussing the negative
effects of LASPO whose result was uncertain but some noticeable effects of LASPO were; 1.
Increase in crime rate, 2. Increase in health problems as people were diagnosed with
depression due to not having access to justice , 3. increase in litigants in person because the
people were not able to afford the fees of lawyers, 4. closure of advice centres, 5. Reduction
in use of mediation due to closure of advice centres, there were less third parties options
available. These were some of the prominent effects of LASPO but one thing which was not
ignorable was that the group of people who were most affected by the LASPO was the poor
people of the society and once again they were left unadvised and in misery as government
was now more keen towards reducing the cost rather than providing right to access to justice.
The LASPO had many negative effects so now we shall be discussing the different views of
the Committees in respect to LASPO. In November 2014, the National Audit Committee
launched a report on LASPO and stated that the government was successful in achieving its
aim of reducing the cost however it did not think about the impact of changes on the wider
system and reforms on the private providers. Similarly, the Justice Committee inquired and
stated that the government had many aims i.e 1: Provide overall value of money to taxpayers
(not achieved) , 2. Target those who need the legal aid the most (not achieved), 3. Discourage
unnecessary litigation (not achieved) and last 4. Reduce the cost of legal aid (achieved, but it
only achieved one aim which harmed the access to justice and was negative for people.
above mentioned was the view of Committees however there are many forums which are
significant and as the LASPO has adverse effects, we shall now be discussing the view of
those forums and whether they can change LASPO or not. the first forum which will discuss
is the view of courts, where it was evident that that courts were in favour of providing legal
aid as in the case of Witham, Sir John Laws stated that “access to justice is a constitutional
right and has weight in the common law” similarly in the case of R (Dlay) V Secretary of
State, Lord Bingham stated that every citizens had 3 rights, 1. Right to access to courts, 2.
right to know procedures and 3. right to communicate to lawyers confidentially. Hence, to
conclude the view of courts, we can say that they found legal aid to be prerequisite to equal
treatment.
Moving on to the second forum, European Court of the Human Right (ECtHR)’s view which
was prominent that they did not considered the legal aid to be a prerequisite instead they
argued that there are many more ways to increase access to justice i.e simplifying the
procedures as in the case of Airey V Ireland, where the claimant said that not proving legal
aid in civil cases was not compatible to “Right to fair Trial” however, the courts held that it
was compatible and the legal aid is only prerequisite in criminal cases and not in the civil
cases.
Last but not the least, the view of government was already identifiable as they were in favour
of LASPO and did not considered Legal Aid to be a prerequisite to equal treatment hence,
to conclude the view of forums we can say that expect courts, both the ECtHR and
government was satisfied with LASPO and did not considered it to be negative.
To conclude the above mentioned points, it can be said that LASPO harmed the access to
justice and led to many negative effects on people. In our view, the government should have
thought about the effects of LASPO before enacting the law since the highest degree of effect
was seen on the poor and vulnerable people of society who cannot get their rights due to
many other reasons so the government should have given a second thought to the enactment
of law and if the ECtHR had made LASPO prerequisite to access to justice, the results might
have been different.

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