Category: (LAA) Legal Aid Agency

WALES/ENGLAND – Minister tells judges to keep out of legal aid disputes

Courts should not intervene in funding disputes where a litigant has already been denied legal aid, the justice minister has said. 10 December 2014By John Hyde   Shailesh Vara (pictured) told a committee of MPs this morning that judges should accept the presence of litigants in person and work with them. His statement was in …

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Permanent link to this article: https://operationfatherhood.org/legal-aid/walesengland-minister-tells-judges-to-keep-out-of-legal-aid-disputes/

UK – Stay-at-home mothers facing child custody battles without legal representation

Mothers have borne the brunt of the impact of cuts in legal representation in family court cases, figures court show     Mothers have borne the brunt of the impact of legal aid cuts  Photo: ALAMY/POSED BY MODELS   The number of mothers facing court battles over access to their own children without a lawyer …

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Permanent link to this article: https://operationfatherhood.org/legal-aid/uk-stay-at-home-mothers-facing-child-custody-battles-without-legal-representation/

WALES/ENGLAND – Top family judge adjourns father’s contact case amid legal aid impasse

Sir James Munby calls for justice secretary’s intervention amid concerns that man’s lack of legal aid could disadvantage child   The judge said there was a risk that, if the process of deciding on a man’s contact with his son was not fair to one parent, that unfairness might ultimately disadvantage the child. Image posed …

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Permanent link to this article: https://operationfatherhood.org/family-law-private/walesengland-top-family-judge-adjourns-fathers-contact-case-amid-legal-aid-impasse/

WALES/ENGLAND – Holman J judgment starkly illustrates troubling effect of legal aid cuts

Lack of representation impacts on court time     Mr Justice Holman has described graphically the practical implications for the family courts of the continuing legal aid cuts. In his judgment in Tufail v Riaz [2013] EWHC 1829 (Fam) he quoted from the recent public lecture to the Institute for Government by Lord Neuberger of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://operationfatherhood.org/legal-aid/walesengland-holman-j-judgment-starkly-illustrates-troubling-effect-of-legal-aid-cuts/

WALES/ENGLAND – Grayling presses on with civil legal aid cuts

Separate consultation promised on judicial review curbs   Justice secretary Chris Grayling is forging ahead with cuts to civil legal aid – while making his planned curbs to judicial review the subject of a separate consultation. In the second Transforming Legal Aid consultation, launched today, he said the residency test would go ahead, and the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://operationfatherhood.org/legal-aid/walesengland-grayling-presses-on-with-civil-legal-aid-cuts/

WALES/ENGLAND – Family judge criticises reliance on free representation

The president of the Family Division has criticised a legal aid regime that left a mother who faced jail reliant on her lawyers’ willingness to act for free.   Dismissing an application by the solicitor general for Jennifer Marie Jones to be committed to prison for failing to comply with an order made in Hague …

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Permanent link to this article: https://operationfatherhood.org/legal-aid/walesengland-family-judge-criticises-reliance-on-free-representation/