Sir, British officials may have astounded members of the Council of Europe by arguing that violence against women is not a violation of human rights (report, Mar 8) but their last-minute backtracking comes as no surprise to anyone who has read the Government’s proposals for the reform of legal aid in England and Wales.
The intention is to exclude a wide raft of cases involving children from the funding scope for civil and family legal aid, except where domestic violence has been shown to be present. This is bad news, particularly for women and children, but it gets worse. The definition of domestic violence is to be so tightly drawn that it will include only cases where there have been criminal orders of non-molestation or occupation, and these are a very small number of the total applications. It ignores existing judicial practice directions, which state that domestic violence “includes physical violence, threatening or intimidating behaviour and any other form of abuse which, directly or indirectly, may give rise to the risk of harm”.
If vulnerable women and their children are to be locked out of the legal aid system then the case may not be adequately heard, all the evidence may not be presented and decisions may be made that do not reflect the risks they face.
Judith Timms
Policy Consultant, Nagalro