Access to Justice: A Comparative Analysis of Cuts to Legal Aid

Abstract

Since 2013, restrictions on the provision of legal aid and changes to social, legal and welfare services have significantly increased demand for legal services in Australia, while simultaneously increasing the extent of unmet legal need. In this climate of austerity, a robust debate over the allocation of resources is taking place with questions regarding the priorities that should be accorded to government-funded serious criminal cases, to criminal representation in the lower courts, and to serious civil and family law matters. This has raised some important questions for practitioners, recipients of legal aid, courts, academics and providers of legal aid funding and services: namely, who deserves legal aid? Should legal aid seek to provide more people with fewer services or should it spend more money assisting fewer vulnerable clients? Who are the core clients of legal aid services? And in the context of finite funding and expanding demands, on what criteria are priorities decided, and who decides those criteria?