No Mad Laws campaign
In the face of increasing pressure on Gypsies and Travellers who do not have authorised stopping places, we have launched the No Mad Laws campaign today.
If you support the campaign, please sign the petition by following this link: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/no-mad-laws
The No Mad Laws campaign is fronted by Gypsies and Travellers and their support groups and representatives who have joined together to highlight the disastrous effect that the Coalition Government’s legal aid and judicial review reforms will have upon Gypsies and Travellers who do not have authorised stopping places due to the continuing failure of central government to ensure that there is adequate site provision.
The legal aid and judicial review reforms have been widely and heavily criticised. In the House of Lords debate on 7th May 2014 Lord Howarth said:
There are constitutional principles at stake in these regulations of bedrock importance: the principle that effective remedy should be available against arbitrary government and the principle that there should be equality under the law. Indeed, it is the rule of law itself which is in question. The law should be for the convenience of the people and not their governors. It is essential, therefore, that remedy should be available that is practical for an aggrieved citizen to seek, and that is available regardless of his personal means, against a public body that conducts itself in a manner that is unlawful, procedurally incorrect, incompetent, oppressive or unreasonable. If judicial review is not available to enable a challenge to wrongful decisions by the state or its agencies, we move away from a liberal constitution and towards executive absolutism. …..If it is unsure that legal aid will be available for the preparation of meritorious cases, then the freedom to seek judicial review is no more than the proverbial freedom of the poor man to dine at the Ritz.
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. The No Mad Laws campaign makes four recommendations:
1. 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;
2. Trespassers should be brought back within the definition of ‘loss of home’ for the purposes of legal aid;
3. As proposed by the Low Commission ( see http://www.lowcommission.org.uk/ ), Housing Law should be brought back within scope for legal aid;
4. As the Low Commission also recommended, there should be an urgent radical overhaul of the provision of Exceptional Funding.
Click here to read a full briefing paper on the reasons for this campaign and the effects that changes to legal aid and judicial review are having on Gypsies and Travellers.
NO MAD LAWS CAMPAIGN 2014
SUPPORTERS
Association of Chief Police Officers
Ladislav Balaz, European Roma Network
Cathay Birch
Jeremy Browne, solicitor
Bucks and West Herts Gypsy Advocacy
Community Law Partnership solicitors
Derbyshire Gypsy Liaison Group
Friends, Families and Travellers
Garden Court Chambers
Garden Court North Chambers
Debbie Harvey housing adviser
Alison Heine MRTPI planning consultant
Irish Community Care Merseyside
Bethan Jones
Tim Jones barrister
Kushti Bok
Leeds Gypsy and Traveller Exchange
Lester Morrill solicitors
London Gypsy and Traveller Unit
Toma Mladenov, 8 April Movement
Dr Angus Murdoch MRTPI planning consultant
National Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups
National Travellers Action Group
One Voice 4 Travellers
Grattan Puxon, Dale Farm Association
Reverend Roger Redding
Roma Support Group
Dr Simon Ruston MRTPI planning consultant
Margaret Smith-Bendell BEM
South West Alliance of Nomads
South West Law solicitors
Tony Thomson
The Traveller Movement
Traveller Space
Travellers' Times
Travelling Ahead
David Watkinson, barrister (non-practising door tenant), Garden Court Chambers