Children being denied justice by legal cuts, says children’s commissioner

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/sep/24/children-denied-justice-legal-cuts-children-commissioner

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Vulnerable teenagers are being deprived of justice because cuts to legal aid are preventing them from getting representation, a report by the children’s commissioner said on Wednesday .

Rights guaranteed by United Nations conventions are being breached because children are unable to navigate complex legal procedures unaided, according to Maggie Atkinson, the children’s commissioner for England.

Legitimate claims for housing, welfare and other cases are being abandoned and children overawed by officials are often unable to fight their way through hostile bureaucracies, the report by the publicly funded office concludes.

Criticism of the impact of changes to legal aid – which sliced £350m off the civil legal aid budget – is not new but coming from an official body and focusing on the plight of children is likely to inflict greater political embarrassment.

“Behind the evidence in our research are countless heartrending stories of children and vulnerable young adults whose lives have been seriously affected by their inability to access legal representation,” Atkinson said. “This means, in effect, that they cannot seek, let alone receive, justice. We should not expect children and young adults to face the complexities of the legal system on their own. These systems are daunting enough for adults, let alone vulnerable children and young people.

“The system is so difficult to navigate that it leads to people having no legal representation. That in turn can prevent decision-makers making decisions properly, as well as stopping individuals obtaining the justice they need … Short-term savings to one part of the legal system – legal aid – are simply shifting costs to another, because judges direct that representation has to be funded.”

The report does not make clear whether or how often children have appeared unrepresented before family courts or immigration tribunals but points to the case of Q v Q, where the president of the high court’s family division, Sir James Munby, recently ordered HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to pay for representation so that justice can be done.

An exceptional funding system created by the Ministry of Justice to help those whose human rights are at risk is not working, the report by the children’s commissioner adds: “Only 57 grants were provided in its first year, rather than the 3,700 the MoJ had expected, due to the complexity and strict criteria applied to the system.”

Rights contained within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), a treaty Britain has ratified, have been infringed, the report states. They include the right to be heard, the right for children not to be separated from parents and that their interests be given primary consideration.

“We believe that urgent review and reform is needed in order to ensure that the legal aid system can adequately protect the rights of children and young people and that the government’s obligations under the UNCRC are met.”

Examples of the problems were collected by the charity Just for Kids Law, which was commissioned to carry out research for the Children’s Commission. One youngster who fled her home after being abused said: “There was a lot of things [local authorities] do only by the fact that they don’t wanna go to court. It literally always has to come down to that. Like, when my lawyer says something like, ‘If you don’t reply by 2pm on Tuesday or whatever, we’ll proceed to court’, they always seem to do it.”

A young woman commented: “I have no support at all, you know you have written to the same people four times and they’ve ignored everything you’ve said, but your solicitor writes and all of a sudden you’ve got every meeting, every assessment.”A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Our reforms have prioritised funding for cases involving the most vulnerable and have made sure that family cases involving children at risk can still get legal aid.

“We are closely monitoring the impact of the changes and would be concerned if there was any evidence presented to us that vulnerable children were not getting the legal help they needed. Since 2011 we have significantly reduced the time that care casesinvolving children take, and have introduced major reforms to keep more family disputes out of court.”

Jo Edwards, chair of the family law organisation Resolution, said: “Since the cuts to family legal aid were introduced, Resolution has consistently argued that they are hurting the most vulnerable people in society. This report validates our concerns, highlighting the difficulties faced by children and young people going through the justice system without the

support of legal aid: from facing the courts without representation, to dealing with their parents involved in protracted battles over their care arrangements without proper legal support.”

Laura Janes, of The Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “This important report echoes my experience of the problems young people in conflict with the law face. So many young people see the law as something that is there to punish them rather than a potential solution to the problems they face.

This means that children and young people are disadvantaged from the outset and require additional support to access and then make the best use of the law. The blanket application of legal aid cuts across the board means that children and young people, who do not even know about their legal rights or the existence of legal aid, have been doubly affected.”