About legal aid

What is legal aid and why is it important?

Legal aid is the provision of publicly funded legal advice and representation to those who cannot afford to pay for it. It is crucial to democracy because without it citizens who cannot afford to instruct a lawyer would be at a disadvantage in a variety of legal proceedings, eg. when being sued in court by a wealthy individual, when their mortgage provider attempts to repossess their house, or when their employer dismisses them unfairly. They would not have access to justice, and the key principles of the rule of law - equality before the law and due process - would therefore be violated. The rule of law is accepted as one of the twin pillars of the constitution of the United Kingdom, the other being parliamentary sovereignty.

A brief history of legal aid

The idea of providing publicly funded legal services to ensure equality before the law for all has existed since the Middle Ages. (See the Magna Carta of 1215, which stated “we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right”.) However legal aid in its modern form can be traced back to the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949, which established a legal aid scheme administered by the Law Society. Later on, the Legal Aid Board was established in 1988 and took over administration of the scheme. Eventually, the Access to Justice Act 1999 replaced the Legal Aid Board with a new body, the Legal Services Commission (LSC). The LSC comprises the Community Legal Service (CLS) and the Criminal Defence Service (CDS), which administer budget resources for civil legal aid and criminal legal aid respectively. The LSC is overseen by the Ministry of Justice.