Anti-cuts direct action group UK Uncut have announced that roadblock protests will happen across the country tomorrow in opposition to the government’s proposed changes to legal aid.
The government’s reforms have come under increasing criticism, with England’s most senior family judge recently describing them as ‘disconcerting’ and suggesting that ‘something needs to be done’. In July, the government was forced to backtrack on a key part of the reforms, that of removing the right of legal aid defendants to choose their solicitor, following protests.
The protest group say their actions will be disruptive but that the government intends to block access to the courts for millions of ordinary people by making justice unaffordable, and is a proportionate response. Continue reading
There is no conceivable justification for slashing £220m from criminal legal aid and removing the defendant’s right to choose a solicitor. None more, at least, than a wilful determination gratuitously to hobble one of the fundamental pillars of the welfare state: equality before the law. This is yet another manifestation of the Tory objective to establish a fully-fledged Market State in which what you get depends entirely on your wealth, whether created or inherited, and what you earn.
Today justice secretary Chris Grayling completes this week’s hatrick of wrong-headed decisions that will set back the justice system for years. First he announced that the MoJ was beginning feasibility work on building a new prison that would hold more than 2,000 prisoners. Jack Straw had the same idea in 2009, but rapidly dropped it when it was criticised for uncontrollable cost, safety risks, control issues, difficulties of focusing on rehabilitation, and evidence from abroad that large prisons were not effective.
