Legal Aid For Prisoners Has Now Been Restored in Three Key Areas

As you may be aware, on 2 December 2013 the Government issued widespread cuts to the Legal Aid. The act restricted the types of work we could undertake under public funding.

However, the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prisoners’ Advice Service have spent many hours fighting to challenge this decision and in April 2017 the Court of Appeal finally ruled in their favour.

 

The three appeal court judges, Lady Justice Gloster, Lord Justice Patten and Lord Justice Beatson, stated:

“At a time when … the evidence about prison staffing levels, the current state of prisons, and the workload of the Parole Board suggests that the system is under considerable pressure, the system has at present not got the capacity sufficiently to fill the gap in the run of cases in those three areas.”

 

 

The Courts concluded that Legal Aid should be restored in three key areas of Prison Law:

• Pre-tariff sift
• A-Category Reviews
• Decisions relating to Close Supervision Centres (CSC)

 

We are pleased to confirm Legal Aid will be available for these matters from 21 February 2018

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