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The Legal Services Commission outlines how it is marking the 60th anniversary of legal aid.
Today is the 60th anniversary of legal aid, but how did legal aid originate?
It was at 11.47am on July 30th, 1949, that the Legal Aid and Advice Act was passed, creating the legal aid scheme, as part of the concerted post-war effort to address the prevailing social and economic problems in the UK.
In the beginning, most legal aid cases were ones concerning divorce, but over the years it has developed into a £2bn a year scheme which funds all sorts of cases from housing, to debt, clinical negligence, family, judicial review and crime.
It's the best-funded state legal system in the world, at £38 per head of population.
Why is legal aid so important to the Legal Services Commission?
Because legal aid is fundamental to social justice and a free and democratic society. And first and foremost, legal aid is important to more than two million people a year, who we help to get advice with their problems.
That's two million plus reasons why it's important to the Legal Services Commission, which commissions legal aid services in England and Wales. As the fourth pillar of the welfare state, legal aid is vitally important to the country as a whole, especially in this time of recession, when more and more people are turning to legal aid to protect their rights.
How is the Legal Services Commission marking the 60th anniversary of legal aid?
By promoting the service to as many people as possible, through media appearances by our senior staff to explain how legal aid helps. A recent MORI poll revealed that 84 per cent of people knew the term legal aid but not what it does.
We want to inform people about legal aid and change the perception that it's not for them, but only given to people who are arrested. Potentially any of us could end up in a situation at any time where we need to call on legal aid, be it debt, housing, family breakdown, or other issues.
We've set up a special 60th anniversary website, which tells the story of legal aid. On it is information on some of the groundbreaking cases which we have funded through the years, including in recent times the successful judicial review by Sussex man Colin Ross, whose local healthcare trust were denying him the right to a life-prolonging cancer drug. Many of our cases have changed the life of the individual concerned and society as a whole.
Looking to the future, what lies ahead for legal aid?
Legal aid will continue to evolve to meet clients' changing needs in the way it has already done over the past 60 years, most recently with the Community Legal Advice website and telephone line, 0845 345 4 345. We've now extended the opening hours, and people can now phone between 9am and 8pm, Monday to Friday, and 9am to 12.30pm on Saturdays.
In doing so, we need to ensure that we have a sustainable scheme for the next 60 years and beyond, which adapts the services it provides to what people want and need, while ensuring the best value for money for the taxpayer. That's why we have embarked upon our current reform programme.
In the future, legal aid will continue to have the aim it started off with in 1949 - that nobody should be "financially unable to prosecute a just and reasonable claim or defend a legal right".
Article Comments
Medical negligence is the all the more common misdiagnoses which for litigation purposes can be subcategorised into non-diagnosis and incorrect diagnoses. If a person suffers as a result of misdiagnoses then this is very much categorised as medical negligence.
http://oopslaw.changjy.com/2009/10/07/an-overview-on-legal-rights-for-clinical-negligence/
Jonathan Paul
7th Oct 2009 at 9:45 am
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