No way, May
The Court of Appeal has refused permission to appeal in the key proportionality case of May v Wavell Group, according to a tweet yesterday by Hailsham Chambers. “The wait for clarity on the correct approach goes on,” it wrote.
Decision day looms
Members are reminded that they only have until tomorrow to vote in the election to fill the vacancy on the ACL Council. Contact enquiries@costslawyer.co.uk with any queries.
Green light for legal aid JR
Legal aid law firm Duncan Lewis has been granted permission to bring a judicial review to challenge the lawfulness of the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations 2012 and the Legal Aid Agency’s (LAA) interpretation of them.
The LAA’s position is that the regulations do not allow it to make legal aid payments for work undertaken before it grants funding. The firm said this meant legal aid providers were not reimbursed for work properly undertaken on an emergency basis before the LAA was able to consider an application and grant funding.
“Another potential effect is that legal aid providers simply will not carry out this work, as they cannot be reimbursed for it by the LAA.”
The LAA’s reading of the rules also prevents it from granting funding from the date of an initial application, even in cases where there have been delays in grants of funding, or where negative decisions on the merits of an application have been reconsidered on review or appeal.
In a statement, the firm said: “We do not believe that it was the intention of Parliament to create such an unacceptable obstacle to legal aid funding for those individuals in desperate need of legal representation.”
Meanwhile, the Law Society has been in the High Court this week to argue its challenge to the Ministry of Justice’s reforms to the litigators’ graduated fee scheme (LGFS). Under the changes, the number of claimable pages of prosecution evidence is capped at 6,000 rather than 10,000 as before.