Sample Solution

Likewise, another argument that arises is this act may interfere with people’s justice and that they are not being treated fairly. A real-life example is the Hillsborough victims in the ‘Hillsborough disaster’ who watched their families be crushed, and the majority of the victims used free legal aid to create cases. If this had occurred again now or something similar, they could not use legal aid as it is not granted for personal injury cases anymore. The courts only allow funding to be given in exceptional cases under the exceptional case funding (ECF) scheme in categories that have now been eliminated. The case of R (on the application of S) v Director of Legal Aid Casework and another 2017 show people arguing that LASPO is ‘systematically’ unjust and unreasonable, but the courts once again ignored this and disagreed. However, the court did acknowledge that there were ‘difficulties’ within the system in the judgement of the case.

This may also concern Human rights as this could also be a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 6 right to fair trial. People may not be able to have a just trial if they do not have the legal funding to support them. In the case of R v Lord Chancellor the Supreme Court held that this act was biased in terms of the funding cuts in the immigration sector. Therefore, this act may be discriminatory and also hinder our right to fair trial. Another case example is Regina (Tirkey) v Director of Legal Aid Coursework and another 2018 in this case a woman was trafficked into the UK and was able to bring a claim against them. This was due to legal funding. However, this case was only allowed as it was an exceptional case which is stated under LASPO s10 .