Devastating blow to Grayling as judges halt his legal aid reform

What’s the betting he’ll seek to make a new, retrospective law, granting him the legal powers he didn’t know he didn’t already have?

Politics and Insights

Originally posted on politics.co.uk July 15th, 2014.

Chris Grayling was prevented from turning legal aid into “an instrument of discrimination” today, after three judges found his reforms to be unlawful.

In a devastating judgement which could bring the residency test requirements to a halt, the judges found the lord chancellor had radically overstepped the proper limits of his powers and was trying to create a discriminatory legal system which was incompatible with equality under the law.

“Using powers that were never his to exercise, the lord chancellor has attempted to refashion  the legal aid scheme  into an instrument of discrimination  so that many of the cases parliament  itself identified as most worthy of  support  could never be taken,” John Halford of legal firm Bindmans, which fought the case, said.

“The court’s judgement on that attempt is emphatic: it is simply unacceptable in a country where all are equal in the…

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