The poor and the most vulnerable are paying dearly

From Times Online
March 25, 2009
Family courts: the poor and most vulnerable are paying dearly
Anthony Hayden, QC

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article5927985.ece


Mr Hayden comments:
"The Legal Aid Act 1949 celebrates its 60th birthday this year. Its provisions embody core beliefs that most of us still subscribe to, central to which is the principle that access to justice is not the privilege of those who can afford it but the entitlement of anybody fighting for the care of their child or for their financial security on the breakdown of their marriage."

"On this 60th anniversary the Government is proposing to drastically reduce funding for family lawyers, both solicitors and barristers.

"That is a tragedy on many levels. It will leave some of our most vulnerable adults and children without a strong, competent, professional voice in some of the most serious cases that any court has to determine."

The Government's proposed cuts to funding family law legal aided cases as well as their intention to increase court costs hugely in private law cases to supposedly help self fund the system will mean, as alluded to by Anthony Hayden QC, that justice will not be accessible to those coping with family breakdown who need recourse to the family courts.

Surely this cannot be the way forward for a caring and socially committed Government?