Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

 

Politics Media Law Society


The rotten fruit issue ... Corruption busters busted for bias, concealment, and conflicts … Mistress of the office couch more damaged than the rape victim … Next round for Linda Reynolds … Reputation damaged by former attorney general … Miranda Devine smooches Trump ... Read on >> 

Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

From the cutting room floor...Handsy Heydon goes to Perth ... Celebrity tour ... Conferenceville ... Dicey's job application speech from 2002 ... Other High Court judges mocked as "vegetables" ... Mason CJ ridiculed ... Speech bowdlerised for public consumption ... Courage of conviction MIA ... From our National Affairs Correspondent ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


Pinning the tail on the jellyfish ... Auditor General to probe the shifting expenditure on Federal Court legal services ... AFR ... More >>

Justinian's Bloggers

Letter from London ... Weather report ... Starmer sinking ... Farage rising ... Fake law firm ... Fake cases ...  NHS employee cleans up with woke case for hurt feelings ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt files from Blighty ... Read more >> 

"And I want to just thank everybody and in particular, God, I want to just say we love you, God, and we love our great military, protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel, and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you." 

Donald Trump at the White House announcing the bombing of Iran ... June 21, 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Holding onto Hope ... Gina Rinehart's Bleak House ... Seeking chunks of the huge iron ore pit, Hope Downs ... Tracing the tangled Wright, Hancock, Rinehart litigation ... Allegations of fraud against the family trust ...Manoeuvring ... Tax "advice" ... Shifting vesting date ... Money, the root of unhappiness ... Anthony-James Kanaan reports ... Read more >> 


Justinian's archive

The High Court of Queensland ... Where to now for Bookshelves Brandis? ... Banana Benders in charge ... Eleven names scratched by CJ from Sunshine silks list ... Prosecutors dominate NSW Dizzo appointments ... Farewell to Equity Queen ... What life looked like nine years ago ... From Justinian's Archive, December 2, 2016 ... Read more >> 


 

 

« Queue See | Main | US soldiers are special: they can shoot, but they can't be shot »
Friday
May102013

Legal Aid: pips are squealing 

Boning knife taken to NSW Legal Aid ... No money for defended Local Court trials, unless defendants face the "real possibility" of a gaol sentence ... Letter from director of the criminal law division ... Challenges in "managing the reaction from the bench" ... Massive resources for the coppers produces squeeze further down the food chain 

NSW Legal Aid plans to stop funding a large swag of defended cases in the Local Court. 

It is the latest in a series of scrunches to the legal aid system across the wide brown land. 

Brian Sandland, director of criminal law division of Legal Aid NSW, issued a missive yesterday (May 9) saying that only grants of aid will be made in defended Local Court cases "where there is a real possibility of a term of imprisonment". 

There will be no grants of aid in less serious summary offences such as shoplifting, goods in custody, assault police, resist arrest, offensive language and minor drug offences - unless there are "exceptional circumstances". 

Where an accused is imprisoned, legal aid will be available for District Court appeals - subject to the merit test. 

Since over 90 percent of criminal work in NSW is finalised in the Local Court the new policy means "significantly fewer" cases will qualify for support by Legal Aid. 

The new policy was defended on the ground that it is still more generous than other states, which restrict funding in defended hearings to cases where there is a real possibility of an actual gaol penalty. 

The NSW definition of "term of imprisonment" includes full-time incarceration, suspended sentences, intensive correction orders, home detention or community service orders. 

In 2011-1012 Legal Aid's assigned expenditure on NSW Local Court cases was $12 million - treble that of six years earlier. 

The State government has been pumping-up the coppers with increased powers and more resources, which means the pressure builds at the under-resourced end of the pipeline. 

Sandland explained that increased demand was only part of the problem, and that there had also been a cut in money from the Public Purpose Fund. 

If that it so it must have been a very recent cut, because the PPF has been the great hollow log out of which successive governments have grabbed funds for legal aid that rightfully should have come from the state budget. 

Just look at the rate of growth of PPF legal aid funding in NSW, compared with that of Victoria ... 

The cuts to defended Local Court hearings are also to be accompanied by changes to Legal Aid's grants in state civil matters, such as public interest environmental cases, victims compo and circumstances that may emerge from the Royal Commission on Child Sexual Abuse. 

Sandland says: 

"The policy changes are not aimed art cutting jobs in Legal Aid NSW. They are aimed at reducing significant assigned expenditure for Local Court case grants." 

All the usual steak 'n' kidney holders, such as the bar 'n' grill, the law 'n' order society the AG, the Chief Madge have been asked for "feedback". 

What will come back will be a variety of loud and pungent raspberries. 

The director of the criminal law division added: 

"There will be teething policies including the interpretation of the new policy, the timing of when to apply it, managing client expectations and managing the reaction of the bench." 

See: Brian Sandland's missive

See: Funding policy guidelines 

See: Old Mates Act 

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Editor Permission Required
You must have editing permission for this entry in order to post comments.