This blog post is completely out of my normal sphere, but I
feel that it is an important issue and one that hasn’t had as much publicity as
it needs.
We all know by now that the NHS
is being systematically destroyed by the Government. Cuts are being made everywhere and with
varying chunks of the NHS being sold off to the higher bidder, the NHS we all
knew is no longer.
This matter has been well
documented both in the press and on the various forms of social media. What hasn’t had as much publicity is the cuts
being made to the legal aid system for criminal matters and the ways in which
the justice system is being changed.
While you think that these
changes may not affect you, that you don’t intend to commit any crimes,
remember that innocent people can be arrested just as easily as guilty
ones. Let it also be remembered that it
the cuts are deemed “successful” by the Government, then the same system will
be rolled out to family cases.
At the moment if you have been
arrested you are able choose a solicitor of your preference, be it someone who you
already know and trust or someone that has been recommended to you in the
knowledge that they will represent your interests fairly and provide you with
the correct advice.
What the changes will institute
is that upon arrest, if you are in need of legal aid, rather than having own
solicitor attend you will provided with a duty solicitor who will also have any
number of cases aside from yours to deal with.
Apart from the obvious delays in being seen that this will cause, with
the duty solicitor having a constant and large stream of people to see, you are
never going to get more than a few minutes with them.
If you are charged with the offence and subsequently bailed, this would
ordinarily be the time, if you hadn’t got someone in mind already, that you
would be instructing your own solicitor to assist you or asking for a
recommendation of the best person in the area.
Once the changes have come into effect however, you will be forced to
stay with the firm you were first allocated with, whether they specialise in that particular area of criminal law or not. You will now be forced to stay with
the firm you have been allotted, who have essentially just been chosen because
they are the cheapest. In my books, the
cheapest is not usually the best quality.
With the majority of people no longer being even eligible for legal aid,
they will be forced to either represent themselves or face the legal bills
themselves.
This will lead to many miscarriages of justice whereby you can’t afford
to get legal advice and thereby you are unable to properly represent your case
at Court which may well lead to a conviction through no fault of your own.
Solicitors who you might previously have gotten some free advice from may no longer be open, as the changes with the legal aid, along with the new rules in civil litigation have forced many firms into closing and putting their employees out of work.
