News In Focus
3 September 2010
Committee calls for priority Access to Justice Bill
A radical Access to Justice (Scotland) Bill should be a top priority in the next session of the Scottish Parliament in 2011, according to the Law Society of Scotland's Access to Justice Committee.
The committee agreed at its first meeting in Glasgow yesterday to produce, as a matter of urgency, a detailed framework for a comprehensive and far-reaching Access to Justice (Scotland) Bill, which could immediately address a number of major deficiencies in accessing Scotland's systems of civil and criminal justice.
The committee, which comprises an equal number of lawyer and non-lawyer members, also agreed to identify, tackle and address the emerging risks to access to justice in Scotland which would flow from the announced cuts to welfare benefit spending by the UK Government, the forthcoming public sector cuts by the Scottish Government, and from the forthcoming decision of the UK Supreme Court in the case of Cadder v HM Advocate.
Committee Convener Mike Dailly said: "Access to civil or criminal justice in Scotland is a constitutional and human right. We believe that Scotland's legal system is a public service which delivers that right in the same way that schools deliver education, or the NHS delivers a health service.
"Accordingly, we believe that citizens in Scotland are entitled to access the appropriate legal advice, assistance, and representation, whenever their liberty, life, wellbeing, children, home, work, environment, and community are significantly threatened. We hold these principles to be self-evident."
Mr Dailly said the committee had resolved to identify the key components for the bill, adding: "We would urge all MSPs and all Scottish political parties to embrace the need for a radical Access to Justice (Scotland) Bill in the next parliamentary session, and to have regard to our analysis of the emerging risks to access to justice in Scotland in light of UK and Scottish Government welfare benefit and public sector cuts."