1,000 signatures reached
To: THE GOVERNMENT
NO MAD LAWS
This campaign has ended.
NO MAD LAWS PETITION
We the undersigned call upon the Government to ensure that Gypsies and Travellers who need advice and assistance under the legal aid scheme are able to receive it.
Due to the legal aid reforms contained in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, Gypsies and Travellers on rented local authority sites are unable to get advice and assistance apart from in eviction cases and cases involving serious disrepair, and Gypsies and Travellers facing eviction from encampments by local authorities may be unable to challenge the eviction action even where the local authority are acting in defiance of government guidance.
We call upon the Government to ensure that: the legal aid regulations relating to the payment for work done on judicial review claims pre-permission should be withdrawn and legal aid should be reinstated for judicial review, subject to the usual merits criteria and eligibility provisions; trespassers are brought back within the definition of ‘loss of home’ for the purposes of legal aid; as proposed by the Low Commission ( see http://www.lowcommission.org.uk/ ), Housing Law should be brought back within scope for legal aid; and, as the Low Commission also recommended, there should be an urgent radical overhaul of the provision of Exceptional Funding
We the undersigned call upon the Government to ensure that Gypsies and Travellers who need advice and assistance under the legal aid scheme are able to receive it.
Due to the legal aid reforms contained in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, Gypsies and Travellers on rented local authority sites are unable to get advice and assistance apart from in eviction cases and cases involving serious disrepair, and Gypsies and Travellers facing eviction from encampments by local authorities may be unable to challenge the eviction action even where the local authority are acting in defiance of government guidance.
We call upon the Government to ensure that: the legal aid regulations relating to the payment for work done on judicial review claims pre-permission should be withdrawn and legal aid should be reinstated for judicial review, subject to the usual merits criteria and eligibility provisions; trespassers are brought back within the definition of ‘loss of home’ for the purposes of legal aid; as proposed by the Low Commission ( see http://www.lowcommission.org.uk/ ), Housing Law should be brought back within scope for legal aid; and, as the Low Commission also recommended, there should be an urgent radical overhaul of the provision of Exceptional Funding
Why is this important?
TRAVELLERS AND GYPSIES ARE SUFFERING BECAUSE OF CHANGES TO THE LEGAL AID SYSTEM.WE NEED THE LAW TO BE CHANGED
