Legal aid cuts will force people to take law into their own hands, Britain's top judge warns in extraordinary attack on ministers
- Lord Neuberger warns plans to limit legal aid will undermine the rule of law
- President of the Supreme Court fears cuts 'may have gone too far'
- Ministers want to save £350million-a-year by 2015
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Fears: Lord Neuberger said limiting access to legal aid could undermine the rule of law
People will be forced to ‘take the law into their own hands’ if government cuts to legal aid mean they cannot afford to seek justice in the courts, Britain’s top judge has warned.
Lord Neuberger expresses alarm at the consequences of the budget cuts, warning the rule of law and ‘the whole democratic process’ risk being undermined.
The President of the Supreme Court’s extraordinary public criticism comes as ministers slash £350million from the legal aid budget, ending support for most civil cases including court battles over debt, benefits and family disputes.
Leaving more people to represent themselves in court will mean cases take longer and could end up costing the government more money.
Lord Neuberger said: 'My worry is the removal of legal aid for people to get advice about law and get representation in court will start to undermine the rule of law because people will feel like the Government isn't giving them access to justice in all sorts of cases.
'And that will either lead to frustration and lack of confidence in the system, or it will lead to people taking the law into their own hands,' he told the BBC.
The cuts 'may have gone too far', he said, adding that the government's most important roles were protecting the country's borders from attack and upholding the rule of law.
'Unless you do those two things, you might as well not bother with welfare, education, health and housing because it is not a country worth living in. Access to justice and an efficient justice system are an essential ingredient of the rule of law,' he said.
If people cannot get free legal advice they could resort to representing themselves. 'This will mean that court hearings will last longer, the burden on court staff and judges will increase,' Lord Neuberger added.
'And you may find the savings the government thinks it's making in legal aid will be offset in other costs of courts and judges and court staff in supporting litigants in person.'
The Ministry of Justice insists legal aid will still be made available to 'those who most need it'.
But ministers insist the £2billion budget cannot be immune from cuts.
The new President of the Supreme Court warned confidence in the legal system and 'the whole democratic process' could be undermined by curbing access to justice
Tory MP Edward Garnier, a former Solicitor General, defended the legal aid budget cuts.
'I think we’ve all got to realise that legal aid is not immune from the necessary public spending constraints that we’re all going through,' he told BBC Radio 4.
He added that people had to be 'more imaginative' and not resort to the courts to resolve their problems.
'I do think we need to be careful not always to run to the lawyer when we think we’ve got a problem. I just think there is room for a wider way of thinking about this.'
In a statement the Ministry of Justice said: 'Legal aid will continue to be provided to those who most need it, such as where domestic violence is involved, where people's life or liberty is at stake or the loss of their home.'
However, Labour's shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said: 'Ministers must urgently respond to Lord Neuberger's warnings that the Tory-led Government's cuts to legal aid could undermine the rule of law.
'The cuts will not deliver the savings the Government claim as costs will simply be displaced elsewhere, such as onto increased running costs for our courts and onto other branches of central and local government.'
Attack: Theresa May warned a fortnight ago that judges were making the UK more dangerous by ignoring rules aimed at deporting foreign criminals
In his first comments since taking up his role as Britain's most senior judge, Lord Neuberger also hit back at Home Secretary Theresa May over her criticism of judges who fail to deport foreign criminals.
He said ministers ‘attacking’ judges was ‘not good for the system’ and her described comments as ‘inappropriate, unhelpful and wrong’.
And he also complained that it was ‘unfair’ of her to attack judges – because they can’t answer back.
Mrs May warned two weeks ago that judges were making the UK more dangerous by ignoring rules aimed at deporting foreign criminals.
'COURTS SHOULD ONLY SIT IN SECRET AS A LAST RESORT'
courts should sit in private only when there is no alternative, Lord Neuberger said,
Judges should apply a similar no-option test when making orders preventing litigants being identified.
And he says documents relied on in court hearings should be made available to journalists covering cases.
'You should not be making any privacy or confidentiality orders unless you as the judge are satisfied that there is no alternative, that justice could not be done without confidentiality or privacy orders,' Lord Neuberger said in an interview with the Press Association.
And he said judges should do everything possible to "minimise" the effects of such orders and try to limit the amount of a time a court had to sit in private.
Lord Neuberger also said journalists covering cases could not always get the full picture without access to documents - such as skeleton arguments, in which barristers outline their claims.
'If proceedings are in public then ... there should be made available all the documents which are in court - (journalists) should have them,' he added.
'If we believe in open justice then we should be doing something to ensure that, within reason, copies of documents, such as skeletons, are available.'
She said some had ‘got it into their heads’ that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights - the right to family life - could ‘not be curbed’, in an interview with the Mail on Sunday.
Last night Lord Neuberger said he was ‘concerned’ about Mrs May’s comments in a series of interviews.
‘I’m concerned about it because I think it’s inappropriate and unhelpful for ministers to attack individual judges or groups of judges.
‘For a minister to attack a judge I think is also wrong. If we start attacking each other in public when each group was honestly trying to do its job, even if we don’t agree with the way they’re doing it, it does no credit either to the minister who’s attacking or to the judge who is being attacked,’ he told the Telegraph.
‘It’s bad for both of us and I don’t see what the benefit is.’ The judge said that such ‘attacks’ were ‘not good for the system’.
In further comments to the Independent: ‘If ministers don’t like our decisions they have two options, one is to appeal; and if they don’t like the result, they can change the law by statute.
‘When ministers attack judges it risks bringing judges into disrepute – which does nobody any good – and it is unfair because judges cannot answer back.
‘It is bad for the whole constitutional state when different arms start attacking each other.’
But he told the BBC Radio 4’s Law In Action programme that he was not ‘alarmed’ by the situation.
After being asked about Mrs May’s criticisms, he said: ‘It causes me concern but it does not alarm me. No government has done anything to undermine judges.’
He added: ‘It is unfortunate that the Home Secretary has acted and spoken as she has done.’
The judge alsocomplained that the human rights convention and European Court of Human Rights had been treated in an ‘unfair’ way by the media.
He said: ‘I think that the convention has got a very unfair press. The human rights convention has been in general a very good influence on our law.
‘The number of times that the Strasbourg court has disagreed with the UK court is very small. Almost every time the Strasbourg court does disagree, it gets headlines. When it agrees it doesn’t hit the press.’
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