House Of Lords House Of Commons Joint Committee On Human Rights The Implications For Access To Justice Of The Government S Proposals To Reform Legal Aid Hl 100 Hc 766

The report The Implications For Access To Justice Of The Government's Proposals To Reform Legal Aid (HL100, HC 766) concludes that the government should reconsider its proposals for the reform of legal aid. The government has so far made welcome exemptions to its proposed residence test in the light of responses to its consultation, but the Committee is still not satisfied that the proposed test will not affect vulnerable groups. While accepting that it is legitimate for the government to introduce a residence test for civil legal aid and to restrict the scope of prison law funding, the Committee calls for more and broader exemptions from these proposals to avoid breaches of the fundamental right of effective access to justice in individual cases. The exceptional funding framework may not be working as intended and could therefore leave certain groups unable to access legal aid when human rights law requires it. The proposal to remove cases with

The Joint Committee on Human Rights accepts that the measures in the Immigration Bill serve the legitimate aim of immigration control, but is concerned that some of them may be applied in practice in a way which breaches human rights in particular cases. The Committee is particularly concerned about the risk of the new provisions relating to residential tenancies giving rise in practice to homelessness in the case of people who have no right to remain in the UK but face genuine barriers to leaving. The Committee is also concerned to ensure that these measures do not give rise to an undue risk that migrant children will be exposed to homelessness or separation from family members. The provisions in the Bill on access to residential tenancies may heighten the risk of racial discrimination against prospective tenants, notwithstanding the fact that such discrimination is unlawful under the Equality Act. The First Tier Tribunal, not the Secretary of State, should decide whether it is within

Parliament and the Law (Second Edition) is an edited collection of essays, supported by the UK's Study of Parliament Group, including contributions by leading constitutional lawyers, political scientists and parliamentary officials. It provides a wide-ranging overview of the ways in which the law applies to, and impacts upon, the UK Parliament, and it considers how recent changes to the UK's constitutional arrangements have affected Parliament as an institution. It includes authoritative discussion of a number of issues of topical concern, such as: the operation of parliamentary privilege, the powers of Parliament's select committees, parliamentary scrutiny, devolution, English Votes for English Laws, Members' conduct and the governance of both Houses. It also contains chapters on financial scrutiny, parliamentary sovereignty, Parliament and human rights, and the administration of justice. Aimed mainly at legal academics, practitioners, and political scientists, it will also be of interest to anyone who is curious about the many fascinating ways in which the law interacts with and influences the work, the constitutional status and the procedural arrangements of the Westminster Parliament.

According to the report The Implications For Access To Justice Of The Government's Proposals To Reform Judicial Review HC (868), the number of judicial reviews has remained remarkably steady when the increase in the number of immigration judicial reviews (now handled by the Upper Tribunal) is disregarded. The report covers: procedural defects and substantive outcomes; legal aid for judicial review cases; interveners and costs; capping of costs (protective costs orders); alternatives to the Government's judicial review reforms; judicial review and the public sector equality duty.

Britain's coalition government of 2010–2015 ushered in an enduring age of austerity and a "moral mission" of welfare reform as part of a drive for deficit reduction. Stricter controls were applied to both domestic welfare and international migration and asylum, which were presented as two sides of the same coin. Policy in both areas has engaged a moral message of earned entitlement and invites a sociological approach that examines such policies in combination, alongside their underpinning moral economy. Exploring the idea of a moral economy – from its original focus on popular rebellion at the rising price of corn to more contemporary analysis of measures that seek to impose moral values from above – Lydia Morris examines Britain's reconfigured pattern of rights in the fields of domestic welfare and migration. Those in power have claimed that heightened conditions and sanctions for the benefit-dependent domestic population, both in and out of work, will promote labour market change and reduce demand for low-skilled migrant workers, often EU citizens, whose own access to benefits was curtailed prior to Brexit. Morris traces related political discourse through to the design and implementation of concrete policy measures and maps the diminished access to rights that has emerged, paying particular attention to the boundaries drawn in defining target groups, and the resistance this has provoked. The Moral Economy of Welfare and Migration considers the topology of the whole system to highlight cross-cutting devices of control that have far-reaching implications for how we are governed as a total population.

A TSO version of a title previously published by HM Government. Dated February 2014. Government response to the Joint Committee's Seventh report, HL 100/HC 766, session 2013-14 (ISBN 9780108551635)

Since the reforms came into effect, there has been a significant underspend in the civil legal aid budget because the MoJ failed to ensure that those who are eligible for legal aid are able to access it. This has been partly been due to a lack of public information, including information about the Civil Legal Advice telephone gateway for debt advice, and the Committee recommends that the MoJ take prompt steps to redress this. The Committee also concludes that the exceptional cases funding scheme has not worked as Parliament intended. It was supposed to act as a safety net, protecting access to justice for the most vulnerable. The Committee expects the MoJ to react rapidly to ensure that the scheme fulfils Parliament's intention that the most vulnerable people are able to access legal assistance. The Government's reforms have led to an increase in the number and a change in the profile of litigants in person: increasingly these are people who have no choice but to represent themselves, and who may thus have difficulty in doing so effectively: although many tribunals are accustomed to dealing with unrepresented litigants the courts have to expend more resources in order to assist them. The MoJ has not been able to demonstrate that it has achieved value for money for the taxpayer. Although significant savings have been achieved, efforts to target legal aid at those who most need it have focused on intervention aimed at the point after a crisis has already developed, rather than on prevention.

The Government proposes to implement its residence test policy by means of an affirmative statutory instrument, which it laid in draft on Monday 31 March. This report looks at that statutory instrument, particularly in relation to its likely effect on children. It sets out in some detail the potential impact of the residence test on four particular categories of children: unaccompanied children, undocumented children, children with special educational needs or disabilities, and section 17 and 20 Children Act 1989 cases. The Committee regrets that the Government's proposal was not introduced by primary legislation to allow both Houses to scrutinise and amend its provisions, and it urges the Government to withdraw the instrument as currently drafted. If the Government does decide to proceed by affirmative instrument, the Committee expects the newly laid instrument to reflect its concerns. The Committee states that the Government's justification for its residence test proposal - to ensure that only individuals with a strong connection to the United Kingdom can claim civil legal aid at the UK taxpayers' expense - cannot be applied fairly to children. It concludes that, if the residence test applies to children, it cannot see any way to ensure that the views of children are heard in any judicial or administrative proceedings affecting the child, as required by Article 12 UNCRC, or to ensure that the child's best interests are a primary consideration