What Magna Carta legacy?
It took this government less than 12 months to wipe out 800 years of progress since the Magna Carta. So much for celebrating the rule of law, says Kerry Underwood
"In England justice is open to all, like the Ritz hotel", the saying goes. Even though the exact wording and source are argued about, its meaning is clear. However from 1948 until very recently legal aid meant that the courts in England and Wales were not just the preserve of the wealthy.
The dramatic attack on access to the courts in the last 12 months has been launched on several fronts. Legal aid has been all but abolished in civil cases; prohibitively high employment tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal fees have seen the number of claims slump; court fees are about to treble in some cases; judicial review is being emasculated and barristers are on strike in criminal matters because of the uneconomic fees.
Add to that the Court of Appeal's Mitchell decision - which you will be delighted to know I will not mention again in this piece - and one might think that 800 years of progress since Magna Carta in 1215 has been undone in one year.
An unfair dismissal case that goes to a full hearing in the Employment Appeal Tribunal costs £3,150 in court fees, if a review is also applied for. Nine months ago it was nothing. Evidence produced to the High Court in judicial review proceedings suggest a fall of 81 per cent nationwide in unfair dismissal claims, 86 per cent in sex discrimination claims, 78 per cent in all discrimination claims, including equal pay. Wales as a country has seen an overall drop of 88 per cent in employment tribunal claims. The Ministry of Justice refuses to produce any figures and refuses to deal with freedom of information requests.
The Spectator, in a very well argued piece, "How legal aid reforms are clogging up the courts", suggests that trials involving one or more litigants in person have jumped from 20 per cent in 2011 to more than 50 per cent now. The irony is that, apart from the obvious injustice caused, legal aid cuts are actually costing the state, that is the taxpayer, money.
Court fees will jump sharply in April. For example the court fee for obtaining a divorce will treble. This is effectively a compulsory purchase; even if everything is entirely amicable you need a court order to end a marriage.
To rub salt into the wound the government is now proposing a £250 fee to appeal against a social security benefits ruling. My guess is that will cut appeals by over 90 per cent.
In February 2014 the Supreme Court published a "Guide to proceedings in the Supreme Court for those without a legal representative". Cases can only go to the Supreme Court if they raise an arguable point of law of general public importance.
It is a fine state of affairs when The Spectator feels it necessary to attack legal aid cuts and the Supreme Court is hearing matters of general public importance without lawyers.
Next year I will no more "celebrate" 800 years since Magna Carta, than this year I will "celebrate" the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. I will instead hang my head in sorrow at all that we have lost.
Kerry Underwood is senior partner at Underwoods Solicitors
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