{"id":130282,"date":"2014-07-15T14:17:21","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T14:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=130282"},"modified":"2014-07-15T14:33:32","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T14:33:32","slug":"governments-legal-aid-plans-unlawful-discriminatory-rule-judges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/governments-legal-aid-plans-unlawful-discriminatory-rule-judges\/","title":{"rendered":"Government\u2019s Legal Aid Plans \u201cUnlawful\u201d and \u201cDiscriminatory,\u201d Rule Judges"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

British judges today ruled that a proposed cut to legal aid known as the \u2018residence test\u2019 is \u201cunlawful\u201d and \u201cdiscriminatory.\u201d The measure, which was pushed through the Commons without a debate last Wednesday (9 July), would block anyone not resident in the UK from receiving legal aid. This would mean that people who had been wronged by the UK Government \u2014 such as victims of rendition and torture \u2014 could be shut out of court, unless they are very wealthy.<\/p>\n

The policy has come in for criticism from two Parliamentary Select Committees: the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) warned last month that \u201cthe residence test will inevitably lead to breaches by the United Kingdom of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,\u201d while the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments (JCSI) has said of the case put forward by the Government that it \u201cdoes not find these arguments persuasive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"rendition\"<\/p>\n

Additionally, an internal Ministry of Justice document has revealed that no savings have been identified as a result of the policy, and it is likely to cause “an increase in costs” to the Legal Aid Agency.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s ruling came in response to a Judicial Review brought by the Public Law Project, a legal charity.<\/p>\n

Commenting, Cori Crider, Strategic Director at Reprieve said: \u201cThis is welcome news. The \u2018residence test\u2019 would seriously damage the principle that no-one, not even the Government, is above the law. Deserving cases \u2014 such as victims of \u2018rendition\u2019 operations in which the UK was complicit \u2014 would be denied their day in court. The Government must think again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

###<\/div>\n
\n

Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to\u00a0Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay.<\/p>\n

CONTACT:\u00a0Reprieve<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Donald Campbell: +44 (0) 207 553 8166 \/donald.campbell@reprieve.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

British judges today ruled that a proposed cut to legal aid known as the \u2018residence test\u2019 is \u201cunlawful\u201d and \u201cdiscriminatory.\u201d The measure, which was pushed through the Commons without a debate last Wednesday (9 July), would block anyone not resident in the UK from receiving legal aid. This would mean that people who had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":129548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-130282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-war-terrorism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}