Global Perspectives on Human Rights: Oxford Human Rights Hub Blog

Edited by Laura Hilly & Richard Martin

Access to justice is the cornerstone of any fair and equitable legal system. As Sir Bob Hepple in his post ‘The Equality Agenda in 2015’ contained in Chapter 11 of this anthology (p 210) emphasises: “This year marks the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, so it is not inappropriate to recall clause 40 (still on the statute book), which states: “To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.”” But writing on the second anniversary of the introduction of sweeping cuts to civil legal aid by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (‘LAPOS’), in the wake of debilitating fee hikes in UK employment tribunals and an ongoing diminution of criminal legal aid, it is reasonable to ask what price are we all now paying for these ‘reforms’ of access to justice in England and Wales? While some of the proposed reforms highlighted in this chapter ultimately failed to make it onto the statute books (for example, the proposed presumptive cost orders to burden amicus interveners: see Daniel McCredden ‘Presumptive Cost Orders: A Threat to Public Interest Interventions’ p 17) most of them succeeded in being enacted. And with the re-election of the Conservative Party to Government in May 2015, many of these cuts are here to stay.

Oxford Human RIghts Hub, 2015,384