A new briefing, jointly authored by ERCS, the Human Rights Consortium Scotland (HRCS) and JustRight Scotland, calls for urgent reform to improve Scotland’s civil legal aid system and increase access to justice.
For over thirty-five years, Scotland’s legal aid system has been a lifeline for those in financial hardship. But today, it’s in crisis.
The system faces a multitude of challenges, including a severe shortage of solicitors, inadequate funding that has not kept pace with inflation, and narrow eligibility criteria that prevents NGOs and community groups from undertaking environmental and public interest litigation.
Access to justice is fundamental to protect our human rights. Yet Scotland remains in breach of Article 9(4) of the Aarhus Convention, which requires that access to justice be ‘fair, equitable, timely, and not prohibitively expensive’. The Convention’s governing bodies has given the Scottish Government until 1 October 2024 to make it affordable to challenge environmental decisions in court.
Without adequate legal aid, marginalised and vulnerable groups are left without legal remedy, undermining Scotland’s commitment to enforceable human rights in a Scottish Human Rights Bill.
ERCS, together with HRCS and JustRight Scotland, is calling for the Scottish Government to:
- Commit to a consultation on a draft Legal Aid Reform Bill by 2026 in the next Programme for Government
- Broaden the scope of legal aid to include NGOs and community groups by amending Regulation 15 of the Civil Legal Aid (Scotland) Regulations 2002.
For more information, read the briefing.
