Legal aid reform urged

Press, 2 August 1983, Page 1

Legal aid reform urged

PA Wellington Urgent action is needed to rescue the legal aid scheme which has been ravaged by inflation and neglect, according to the president of the New Zealand Law Society, Mr Bruce Slane. The final report of the working party on access to the law, which was released yesterday by the Minister of Justice, Mr McLay, brought to an end “all excuses for Government inaction,” Mr Slane said. The society would not agree with every detail, but it felt the report was a basis for immediate Government action, he said. The working party wants big changes to the much criticised legal aid system. The 53 recommendations cover a wide range of issues, including the duty solicitor scheme, offenders’ legal aid, the needs of cultural and ethnic minority groups, and Children and Young Persons Courts. The report calls for the present Legal Aid Board to be abolished and a legal services board to be established supported by a new Legal Services Act. Mr Slane said he would seek an urgent meeting with Mr McLay to ascertain Government intentions. “Detail of the report indicates the ravages which inflation and neglect have made on both civil and criminal legal aid systems and the need for legal aid for advice and for support for neighbourhood law offices and law centres.” The working party on the request of the Minister, produced an interim report last December, but its urgent recommendations were not acted on.

The Government should now commit itself to the main recommendations in the report and act on the urgent ones, Mr Slane said.

The report recommends that, in non-criminal cases, the Government consider providing legal aid to those involved in commissions of inquiry, and that the Legal Services Board consider aid to persons taking Court action against Government organisations. It recommends that the

upper limit for claims before the Small Claims Tribunal be raised to $l5OO and that duty solicitors’ rates of remuneration be increased, a controversial issue in the Legal Aid system. The report has been referred to the inter-depart-mental officials committee, which will consider its recommendations and report back. Mr McLay said the party’s recommendations did not necessarily reflect Government policy. “Nonetheless I am well aware of the importance of updating our legal aid system and the recommendations will be treated with urgency,” he said. Real improvement in the system could not be expected until the Government was prepared to spend more money on it, said Labour’s justice spokesman, Mr F. D. O’Flynn. Mr O’Flynn said he was pleased that the proposed Legal Services Board would meet a need for consumer representation.