Corbyn slams government's legal aid cuts

The Labour leader said aid is a "basic human right" and claimed that Britain will no longer be able to condemn foreign regimes if it walks away from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Entitlement to legal aid is a “basic human right” Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, told a lawyer’s rally this week.

At the Justice Alliance rally, aimed at defending public access to justice, he also said that Britain will have no moral right to condemn abuses by totalitarian or autocratic regimes if the government "walks away" from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Corbyn sharply criticised the previous and current governments for cutting eligibility for legal aid and pay rates for lawyers. 

"The effect of these cuts is brutal," he told a crowd of several hundred at Conway Hall in central London. "A denial of justice is taking place because of legal aid cuts. It is absolutely crucial we start from the principle of defending legal aid and demonstrating how short-sighted these cuts are."

Corbyn - whose grandfather was a London lawyer – claimed there are economic as well as a moral reasons to increase the legal aid budget. "Every pound spent on legal aid and advice saves the state £6," he said, arguing that a lack of initial legal advice can lead to longer-term health and social problems.

The Labour leader was speaking to a meeting organised by the Justice Alliance, a collection of organisations campaigning to reverse reforms to the legal aid system instituted by Chris Grayling, justice secretary.

Corbyn also staunchly defended the Human Rights Act: "We must defend the principle of access to justice, defend the universal declaration of human rights and the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights.

“Because if we as a country walk away from that agenda, we are in no position to condemn the government of Saudi Arabia for executing people as they are doing at the moment."

Corbyn has launched a review of the legal aid system, headed by Lord Bach, the shadow attorney-general. He told the rally that the first meeting of that review group was scheduled for 19 January and that a report would be produced in the summer for presentation to Labour's annual conference.

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