Continuing criticism of Legal aid funding cuts
Friday 30 August 2013 @ 9.24 a.m. | Judiciary, Legal Profession & Procedure
The Law Council of Australia (LCA) has published a Media Release to its website dated 23 August 2013 indicating that research conducted by the LCA has found that thousands of Australian citizens could be the victims of major injustice due to their inability to access legal representation from the Legal Aid Commissions.
The finding points to the drastic funding cuts to legal aid made in 1997, which the LCA says reduced the Commonwealth’s share of legal aid funding from 55 percent to around 33 percent, forcing the Legal Aid Commissions to impose tighten and restrict access to Legal Aid which is a "vital social service".
LCA Access to Justice Committee spokesperson, Dr David Neal SC, is quoted in the release as saying the restrictions meant only those facing a term of imprisonment, or those with "special circumstances", could qualify for legal aid when facing charges before a Magistrates Court. Dr Neal states:
“There is an untold number of Australians appearing before Magistrates Courts without legal representation simply because Legal Aid Commissions cannot afford to provide it to them. This is a very serious and distressing state of affairs for the Australian justice system — people appearing before a Magistrates Court without a lawyer run a much higher risk of being convicted, even if they are innocent".
Probably the greatest injustice being the unfair contest created as a result of a person not being properly represented, as Dr Neal says:
“It is a major injustice for an average citizen to appear before a Magistrates Court unrepresented against government funded, professional prosecutors, . . .”
Prior to the 1997 cuts through most of the 1980's legal aid expanded which meant that people facing charges in Magistrates’ Courts would be provided with a lawyer if they were unable to afford one and this representation became more and more important as the power of Magistrates Courts expanded to deal with more serious offences.
In the LCA media release Dr Neal states that: "it [is] vital for an incoming Commonwealth Government to increase [the] funding of Legal Aid Commissions to a 50/50 split with the states and territories. Recent modest funding increases mean that the Commonwealth currently contributes about 35 percent to legal aid funding in Australia ... Unless there is a commitment to increase this funding to 50 percent, thousands of ordinary citizens will continue to go unrepresented and possibly be erroneously convicted."
In a law debate on Monday 26 August 2013 reported by Lawyers Weekly, Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus is reported as saying: "he was committed to working towards restoring the Commonwealth’s funding commitment to 50 percent – the level it used to contribute and what the LCA is calling for a return to". But neither the Attorney or Shadow Attorney were prepared to "concretely" commit to a full return to 50 percent Commonwealth funding position.
The question is ongoing and no doubt will continue to be raised with a new government after the election.
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