The Gazette 1991

GAZETTE

DECEMBER 1991

Need for Comprehensive Scheme of Civil Legal Aid Report of Law Society Committee on Civil Legal Aid

The current scheme of Civil Legal Aid falls very short of what is needed according to the report of the Law Society Committee on Civil Legal Aid. The Committee was appointed by the Council of the Society to examine the existing scheme of legal aid and tomake recommendations as to how the scheme might be improved. The Committee says that the provision of a comprehensive legal aid scheme is an indispensable feature of amodern democratic society which has proper regard for equal opportunity and the importance of access to justice.

needs to be extended, clearly it woúld not be economic to establish a centre in every town or village. Therefore, the Law Society believes there is a role for the private practitioner in the scheme to cover areas where it would not be practicable to have a full-time law centre. 4. A second reason for involving private practitioners in the scheme would be to enable the Legal Aid Board to deal ade- quately with conflict cases in the family law area. At present, when marital difficulties arise between spouses and the parties are eligible for legal aid, only one of the spouses can be represented by the local legal aid centre. This means that if the other spouse also requires legal services, he has to obtain a service from another centre. The result is that at least one of the solicitors has to travel a long distance to take instructions and to represent his client in court. This is an uneconomic way of providing the service. 5. Private practitioners should also be involved in the scheme to deal w i t h adjournments and to provide replacements for Legal Aid Board solicitors who are absent. 6. The scope of the scheme should be extended to cover re- presentation of persons before tribunals, in particular, the Employment Appeal Tribunal. 7. The present criteria for eligibility for legal aid gives rise to con- fusion and requires clarification. All medical card holders should be entitled to obtain services under the scheme and the Legal Aid Board should be given a residual discretion in relation to borderline cases. (Cont'd on page 423) 403

Shortcomings The Committee's report identifies a number of shortcomings in the current scheme. The existing scheme of civil legal aid was established in 1980 on foot of a report by the Pringle Committee. However, the scheme introduced by the Government fell far short of the comprehensive scheme recom- mended by that Committee. For example, a range of proceedings are excluded from the scope of the scheme including defamation, disputes concerning rights and interests over land, civil bills for sums below £150, arbitration under the Landlord and Tenant Acts and conveyancing matters. The scheme does not cover class actions or test cases. The scheme applies only to proceedings before a court; proceedings before tribunals including inquests and arbitrations are excluded from the scheme. Another serious limitation is that the scheme provides its services solely through lawyers employed directly by the Legal Aid Board in centres run by the Board through- out the country. Lawyers in private practice are excluded. The Pringle Committee had recommended that legal aid and advice should be provided both by lawyers in private practice and lawyers in community legal advice centres. At present, there are only twelve legal advice centres in the country and there are wide areas of the country which do not have the services of a centre. As a conse- quence, the catchment areas of

many of the centres are very large, in many cases covering more than one county. The existing centres are inundated with work and quite unable to cope with the current level of demand. Persons seeking legal aid often have to travel substantial distances to obtain a service. There are long waiting periods for people seeking advice. Recommendations for a comprehensive scheme of civil legal aid and advice The Committee's report makes a number of recommendations: 1. The scheme of civil legal aid and advice, suitably improved, should be put on a statutory basis without delay. The Legal Aid board should be established in law and given statutory powers and responsibilities. It should be independent in the exercise of its functions. The Board should have an adequate budget sufficient to enable it to discharge its functions effect- ively including research and dissemination of information about legal rights. The necessary legislation should be introduced without further delay. 2. The number of legal aid centres should be increased. There should be at least one centre in every principal county town in the country. The number of centres in Dublin and other larger cities needs to be increased. 3. While the network of law centres around the country