Legal Aid is useless for Judicial Reviews

[heisenberg]

Dear fellow beagles,

It appears to me that people who are at the mercy of legal aid are truly scuppered when it comes to Judicial Reviews.

I have contacted a few legal aid solicitors and they all seem to run a mile when you mention 'Judicial Review'. It seems this is an almost impossible challenge when challenging public body decisions (any government funding is only available where prospects of success are reasonable).

The most difficult thing to swallow is these solicitors just give extremely brief responses to my requests for assistance along the lines of 'sorry. no thanks'. I then ask for more details and I'm told to cough up in the region £2000 to instruct a barrister to consider the merits of the case.

I suppose this is quite useful or convenient for the government as they do not want to pay to have their respective decisions challenged.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Many thanks.

[stevemLS]

Re: Legal Aid is useless for Judicial Reviews

Correct, legal aid is almost never available for JR.

[heisenberg]

Re: Legal Aid is useless for Judicial Reviews

Correct, legal aid is almost never available for JR.

So much for access to 'justice'. What a chequebook justice system we have...

[stevemLS]

Re: Legal Aid is useless for Judicial Reviews

Afraid it is and always has been, even more so at the moment.

We get what we elect and what we pay for.

Not by any means defending it.

[heisenberg]

Re: Legal Aid is useless for Judicial Reviews

Afraid it is and always has been, even more so at the moment.

We get what we elect and what we pay for.

Not by any means defending it.

Indeed, I understand there were more serious cuts brought in a few years ago (around 2012). Seems the situation is getting worse.

Even Employment Tribunals are now charging disproportionate fees and anyone who has ever been to the Employment Tribunal knows how unpredictable they are and how hard claims are to win there (almost impossible as a litigant in person). As for appealing, the EAT are intimately aware you have no recourse as you need representation at the Court of Appeal.

If you are poor - you have no access to justice in my opinion.