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We are now at real risk of losing one (or more) of the four defining characteristics of a civilised society.   Alongside good health, education and housing services access to justice is not just desirable, it is absolutely essential.   It’s now seriously threatened by a combination of upheavals which together could end the principle of the free availability of justice which has lasted since 1948. Legal aid work, on which poorer individuals heavily depend especially concerning threatening and dangerous family disputes, is being cut back drastically for three main reasons.   One is that previously legal aid firms were funded case by case.   Now they are being required to bid for 3-year contracts which favours bigger firms and is sharply reducing the number of smaller practices which mainly provide emergency legal aid in cases of domestic violence, forced marriage victims, children in care, divorce and adoption.   The Legal Services Commission states that only just over half of the family law firms (1,300 out of 2,400) have won new contracts which are due to start in October.

Secondly, the Ministry of Justice like other government departments is being subject to 25% cuts, and has already announced it is cutting its £9bn budget by £2bn.   Kenneth Clarke, whose instincts in cutting the insane massive prison-building programme are sound, has regrettably stated he sees legal aid is fit for cuts.   That may well apply for some excessivly highly-priced cases or where the applicants for public funds are very rich.   But it certainly shouldn’t undermine access to justice for the poorest and most vulnerable.

Third, the Government’s proposed cull of magistrates and county courts will unquestionably seriously reduce access to justice.   Again, elderly and disabled persons as well as very poor individuals may well find that the greater distance required to travel is deterrent or prohibitive.

What is sickening about this withdrawal or reduction of justice facilities for the bottom third of the population is that it could easily, and much more justly, be avoided by taxing the very rich who are substantially the authors of the recession and are largely impervious to the downturn.   The richest 10% own personal wealth of £4 trillion (yes, £4 trillion),  with an average per household of £4 million, while the bottom half of the population own just 9% of total personal wealth.   A one-off tax of just 20% on the extreme wealth of this richest group would pay off the national debt and dramatically reduce the public accounts deficit.   There are many good reasons for doing this.   Preserving a system of justice in Britain is just one of them.