It Has Been Said By Some That, Justice Can Be Bought. That Is To Say That, If On

Below is a free term papers summary of the paper "It Has Been Said By Some That, Justice Can Be Bought. That Is To Say That, If On." If you sign up, you can be reading the rest of this term papers in under two minutes. Registered users should login to view this term paper.

Term Paper Title	It Has Been Said By Some That, Justice Can Be Bought. That Is To Say That, If On
# of Words	3774
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	15.1

It has been said by some that, "justice can be bought".  That is to say that, if one has the money, one can hire the best lawyers and oftentimes receive a better result than a poor man might.  While this may be true, it is not in the interests of society to  have favorable judgments go to the highest bidder.  Indeed, if wealth were allowed to circumvent justice, the whole fabric of our liberal society would unravel.
All men, regardless of how poor they are, have the right to access to the justice they might find in the courts.  If we deny them that access, we deny them their justice.

  The fact is though, the access to justice costs money.  Therefore, society must bear the cost of aiding the poor in their quest for justice.  In the UK, we have a long tradition of legal aid to the poor, which subsidizes this quest.  In the past, legal aid was provided by the legal profession of a charity basis (Bailey, 1996, page 568).  As time went on and the workload increased, the legal profession could not cope with the volume of work.  In 1949, the Legal Aid and Advice Act was passed.  This was amended in 1974 by the Legal Aid Act.  Finally, in order to further streamline the whole process of providing aid, the 1988 Legal Aid Act was passed.  This act remains in place until today.

There has been continuing pressure to provide more access to the justice system.  At the same time, there have been concerns about fiscal restraint.  A great deal of controversy has resulted from the clash between these two opposing  positions.  At the same time, there have been questions raised about the efficiency of the legal aid system.

Like any resource, inefficiency and mismanagement may squander legal aid money.  This would impact very badly on society.  Either, the cost of justice would rise steeply, or fewer people would be able to use the courts to seek justice.  This begs the question therefore; in what way can these financial resources be used to get the best benefit?

I shall discuss the present state of the legal aid system, both criminal and civil, review the latest proposals for reform, and discuss whether or not the Legal Aid system is living up to it's mandate.  My discussion will focus on some (but certainly not all) of the new proposals.

Civil Legal Aid

The present criteria for access to civil  legal aid are as follows; reasonableness, merit, and means.
To begin with, I will discuss the criteria of reasonableness.  Legal aid is likely to be refused on the grounds tha...

This is not the end of the termpaper! Register below to see the complete version of this term paper.

Membership Plans	Credit Card	Check

1 month membership

3 month membership (You Save 50%)

6 month membership (You Save 67%)

Copyright © 2002-2007 Mid Term Papers. All rights reserved. This term papers website is used for research purposes only.
If you have forgotten your username or password, please click here.
If you like to cancel your account, please click here.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22