Legal aid set up to fail victims and offenders

[Bloody Mad Woman (BMW)]

Press Release by New Zealand National Party 1:06pm, 23rd January 2007

"It's just appalling that Labour is budgeting on more people to be failed by our legal aid system before it does something to fix it," says National Party Associate Justice spokeswoman Kate Wilkinson.

"Labour doesn't seem to care that more people will miss out on representation in court as the number of legal aid lawyers prepared to take on the work evaporates.

"The exodus of lawyers from the legal aid list is not a new issue, but the Minister continues to turn a blind eye. His move to expand eligibility for legal aid will mean nothing if there aren't any lawyers prepared to take cases."

Mrs Wilkinson is commenting in light of the Minister's statement that 'once changes to eligibility had been bedded in a review of the rates would be undertaken'.

"Whilst he is in slumber mode, the number of lawyers undertaking legal aid is diminishing - family legal aid lawyers have dwindled from 2012 to 1017 in the past 12 months and the number of criminal legal aid lawyers has dropped from 1084 to 846.

"We've lost half the family lawyers who would do legal aid work and around 20% of those who carry the criminal workload. Meanwhile the Minister's bureaucracy continues to grow at an alarming rate."

Answers to Parliamentary questions show there are 112 people employed principally for processing legal aid applications.

"Based on a 46-week year and a 40 hour week that means it takes three hours per application to process and the cost per grant has risen from $180.66 last year to $203.76.

"Labour's ill-conceived increase in legal aid eligibility will result in an additional 77.7 full time equivalent staff at a cost of $3.84m.

"So what we're looking at is a 40% increase in staff, more office space and more people eligible for legal aid - but fewer lawyers to do the work. This is a recipe for disaster.

"How many people will be denied proper representation because of the incompetent way that Labour's gone about effecting change?"

ENDS

It is no wonder lawyers won't take on legal aid work - so many hours are involved which they never get paid for because the Legal Aid Agency has set fees basically and will, in most cases, turn down a request for more hours to be delegated to a case. The paperwork involved is phenomenal. Normally I never sympathise with lawyers but in this case - they really are hard done by.

[Hitcher]

Mad McVicar's Mob will sort it out, given that they officially hold the patent on the word "sensible".

[Bloody Mad Woman (BMW)]

Hitcher, excuse my ignorance but who is Mad McVicar's Mob??

[Hitcher]

The so-called Sensible Sentencing Trust.

[u4ea]

In my veiw anyone who has been convicted of a serious crime(manslaughter,murder,robbery,rape etc) should have the cost of legal aide put on their sentance......maybe then there would be more money for the victims and real family court issues to be addressed........

[Hitcher]

In my veiw anyone who has been convicted of a serious crime(manslaughter,murder,robbery,rape etc) should have the cost of legal aide put on their sentance......maybe then there would be more money for the victims and real family court issues to be addressed........

And how, exactly, would that reduce the cost to taxpayers?

[MSTRS:Me]

The so-called Sensible Sentencing Trust.

Halt thy vitriol, good sir. McVicar merely aims to have sentences fit the crime and for truth in sentencing (ie if 'life' means 10yrs then none of us would get past Year6/Standard 4)

[Mrs Busa Pete]

what gets me is you cant get legal aid for serious traffic ofencess you need to pay thousands of your own money to fight it and if you win you can,t go the cops for the costs talk about stacking the deek in there favour .there is somthing wrong when you have more wrights as an alledged killer than alledged speeder

[Storm]

there is somthing wrong when you have more wrights as an alledged killer than alledged speeder

But dont you know, speed kills
And raises lots more revenue than other boring stuff that police could be doing

[Mrs Busa Pete]

But dont you know, speed kills
And raises lots more revenue than other boring stuff that police could be doing

LIKE SILVERDALE OFF RAMP THIS ARVO COP WITH RADAR POINTED DOWN MOTORWAY WHEN THERS A 2 CAR CRASH IN FRONT OF HIM TRAFFIC BACKED UP DOWN MOTORWAY EDGE HE DIDENT MOVE THE RADAR OR GET OUT OFF HIS CAR NO MONEY IN GETTING IT SORTED AND MOVING AGAIN

[elle-f]

i would have bloody taken his number

[Storm]

He's got his quota to fill remember. Didnt want to do the monthly bonus in y'know

[Lou Girardin]

In my veiw anyone who has been convicted of a serious crime(manslaughter,murder,robbery,rape etc) should have the cost of legal aide put on their sentance......maybe then there would be more money for the victims and real family court issues to be addressed........

How many of these arseholes have any money?
Lack of such, or the will to earn it is what makes them arseholes.
As for McVicar, he does appeal to the non-thinking.
I wonder if he's ever thought of the consequences of locking up as many people as we do, for twice as long?