STATUTES AND REPORTS
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1946.tb00998.x |
| Date | 01 April 1946 |
| Published date | 01 April 1946 |
58
STATUTES AND REPORTS
LEGAL AID TO THE POOR AND THE RUSHCLIFFE REPORT
IN
the last issue of this
Review
the present writer reported on
the two schemes on legal aid to the poor submitted by Sub-
committees set up by the Conservative Party and the Labour
Party.’ While that article was being printed the report
of
the Committee under the chairmanship
of
Lord Rushcliff e,
appointed by the Lord Chancellor (Lord Simon), was published
and the entire problem assumed
a
completely new aspect.2 The
two political committees had seen most of the problems. Both
had also felt
a
great deal of sympathy with the various pro-
posals for reform. Yet it is clear that neither Committee had
treated the subject in
a
manner that could be considered
as
approaching a convincing solution. The Rushcliffe Commit-
tee’s report is of a very different character.
It
is
a
well-nigh
exhaustive study of legal aid to the poor.
It
contains
a
most
elaborate, and in some cases profound, discussion of the various
suggestions for improvement made by recent writers and by the
numerous experts heard by the Committee. Moreover, it
embodies in its scheme
a
number of new ideas, the result of the
Committee’s own creative work. The Rushcliffe Committee
may indeed have succeeded in giving
a
satisfactory answer
to
some of the most baffling problems of legal aid to the poor.
The Conservative Party scheme had treated legal aid
in
litigation with a considerable amount
of
understanding and
sympathy, but failed to submit any suggestions for legal aid
outside litigation. The Labour Party’s scheme had avoided
this error and devoted an equal amount of attention to both
sides of the problem. But the Labour Party’s Committee had
confined itself to
a
few cursory remarks on the organisational
side of the problem. Last, but not least, that Committee-like
many others in the past-had failed to establish
a
proper
connection between the organisation concerned with legal aid
in litigation and that which administers legal aid outside litiga-
tion. The difficulty of establishing this connection is created
by the necessity of keeping unimpaired the freedom of the
profession, and at the same time securing to the independent
1
See
E.
J.
Cohn,
‘
The
Political
Parties
and
1~:gaI
Aid
’,
in
8
MoD.I,.REv.
(1945).
2
Cmd.
6641/1945.
pp.
97
ff.
To continue reading
Request your trial