Sir – The Ministry of Justice has issued a consultation document, Transforming legal aid: delivering a more credible and efficient system.
As a recently retired circuit judge who sat exclusively in the criminal crown courts, I feel able to comment freely on some of the contents. The proposals affecting crime will remove a defendant’s freedom to choose his or her lawyer, provide for a fixed fee for the lawyer whether the client pleads guilty or contests the matter, cap eligibility for legal aid so that those who cannot prove a low income will be refused legal aid.
In the Thames Valley Area, (Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire) the proposals reduce the number of firms eligible to provide legal aid to four for the whole area and award contracts to those four firms on the basis that the four lowest bids succeed. This means that many local excellent solicitors’ firms will be frozen out of legal aid defence work and close. It will also result in many more unrepresented defendants facing serious allegations of crime being unrepresented. Unrepresented parties are already clogging up the civil courts. If these proposals are put into effect, criminal trials will take far longer and the delay before trial will increase. There will also be many more appeals by unrepresented defendants which will further increase the work of the appeal court. May I urge those who may be affected to take the opportunity to comment on these proposals before the period for consultation expires on June 4, 2013?
Seddon Parmoor, The Rt Hon the Lord Parmoor, High Wycombe
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