The UK charity, Public Law Project (PLP) revealed that they have issued a letter to Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk, making the case that he is in breach of his legal obligation to offer legal aid to asylum seekers in England and Wales, as is his responsibility under s.1 (1) of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. This letter is seen as a prerequisite for judicial review, should they not reach a resolution with the Lord Chancellor.
The accompanying report produced by PLP in conjunction with the Haringey Migrant Support Centre notes that the current legal aid system is failing on a financial, structural, and practical level. Asylum claimants, on average, are required to make around 16 attempts to access legal aid prior to receiving it. The PLP argues that these systemic failures are incumbent upon the Lord Chancellor to address and his failure to do so is what instigates the proposed judicial review.
PLP Lead Lawyer Daniel Rourke stated in a subsequent statement: “Across England and Wales, legal aid is failing. In many regions, all immigration and asylum legal aid lawyers have gone. Major private firms that do provide legal aid in this area operate at a loss. The type of legal aid in question aids individuals fleeing trauma, such as persecution, trafficking, and domestic abuse, to present their cases to the Home Office or make an appeal to the Tribunal. The Lord Chancellor is legally bound to ensure that legal aid is available.”
However, a government spokesperson disputed this argument in an interview with The Guardian. They claimed that the Legal Aid Agency routinely monitors the capacity of the legal aid market and takes swift action if gaps arise. Additionally, they stated that the Ministry of Justice is currently reviewing the system to ensure its sustainability.
This directly clashes with the claims made in the aforementioned PLP report which documents the government’s inadequate response to parliamentary inquiries, in particular, the failure to react to the 2021 Ministry of Justice internal review’s demand for “radical change” and a “complete overhaul of the system”. Similarly, the government’s lack of response to the 2021 Westminster Commission on Legal Aid’s Inquiry into the sustainability and recovery of the sector and the 2019 Ministry of Justice’s Post-Implementation Review of Part 1 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 were noted as undereactions.
Yourker concluded that this action on the part of the PLP was not taken lightly and highlighted the fact that the group had been championing this issue for more than a decade. It is now calling for urgent action and is prepared to ‘reluctantly initiate legal proceedings’ if the Lord Chancellor does not fulfill his duties.