Legal Aid

Today was the first day of the new Legal Aid régime that reintroduces means-testing for defendants. As expected we were forced to adjourn five cases for a week to allow lawyers and court staff to sort out eligibility. Across the country there must have been hundreds. The new means form is fiendishly complex and runs to more than two dozen pages.

Court staff and judiciary have worked hard for eighteen months and more to reduce delay in hearing cases. We have hammered defence and prosecution, cut requests for adjournments down from weeks to days and from days to hours. It has worked. Now, with yet another ill-thought-out reform, we are reintroducing systemic delay.

Brilliant. Bloody brilliant.