Legal aid cuts have had "considerable" adverse impact on courts, judges warn

Cuts in legal aid have resulted in higher costs elsewhere in the courts system, judges have warned.

In evidence to a parliamentary inquiry, the Judicial Executive Board said that reductions in legal aid had led to an increase in the number of litigants in person, whose cases often took up more court time and were less likely to be settled out of court than were those handled by lawyers.

Judges told the justice select committee that the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) had led to “a significant increase” in such litigants. This trend was most prominent in private law family litigation.

The board said: “Litigants in person are not ‘a problem’. The problem lies with aspects of the system that have not developed with a focus on unrepresented litigants and which are now faced with an unprecedented increase in their incidence.”

Courts had long sought to ensure just outcomes where one of both parties was a litigant in person but the system was now becoming clogged up with these cases.

In tribunals, where legal aid has always been very limited, the reduction in legal advice available for the preparation of cases “has had the most marked affect”.

Despite a lack of quantitative evidence, anecdotal evidence from judges was plentiful and showed “the increase in litigants in person has put significant pressure on the courts and tribunals”.

They said: “Where legal aid has been removed and individuals have become self-represented the adverse impact upon courts’ administration and efficiency has therefore been considerable.

“The apparent saving of cost by a reduction in the legal aid budget needs to be viewed in context: often it simply leads to increased cost elsewhere in the court system as, for example, anecdotally cases take longer.”

Cases which may never have been brought or been compromised at an early stage were now “often fully contested requiring significantly more judicial involvement and causing consequential delays across the civil, family and tribunals justice systems,” the board said, with use of mediation and ADR becoming less common.

“The judiciary’s experience is that the absence of pre-proceedings advice in the tribunals’ jurisdictions has resulted in an increase in unmeritorious claims and, almost certainly, some meritorious cases never being brought,” the board concluded.

The judges also said that exceptional cases funding gave “cause for concern”.

Mark Smulian