England: Lord Neuberger calls for restoration of legal aid in family cases

Lord Neuberger

Lord Neuberger, who was the UK’s most senior judge from 2012 to 2017, told The Guardian that the removal of legal aid from family disputes was “wrong in principle”.

He said: “In this increasingly complex world where laws are almost always more complicated, particularly to a non-lawyer, you need to give people access to legal advice, you need to give people access to courts with a lawyer to represent them. And that’s equally true when it comes to divorce and children.

“It’s almost disgraceful to give them human rights and then not give them the ability to enforce those rights. Rights aren’t meaningful unless they can be enforced.”

He said that legal aid had to be better funded following cuts made by successive governments, the worst of which occurred during the coalition years.

Under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, all legal aid for private family cases was abolished except where there was an allegation of abuse.

The former judge said that by providing legal aid money could actually be saved, as fewer cases would come to court.

“They’ve taken away legal aid from lots of family cases, which they think is a clever way of cutting costs. I suspect it does the opposite, because with competent lawyers you settle cases and tell the clients not to be so stupid, whereas, if they’re on their own, they don’t know what’s stupid and sensible, so they fight.”

He also said that blocking people’s access to lawyers risked undermining justice.

“Law and order involves not just having a good justice system that’s objectively good, you need one in which people have confidence. And I think that justice is not seen to be done if you are somebody who loses a case and feels you didn’t really have a fair trial because nobody was there to explain your rights, explain what you should be doing, and to represent you.”