New migrants will have to wait a year for legal aid
Justice secretary to announce plans aimed at targeting illegal immigrants, failed asylum seekers and those on tourist visas
The Guardian, Sunday 7 April 2013 20.28 BST
Chris Grayling will announce plans to restrict legal aid for foreign nationals who have only been in the UK for a short time. Photograph: Ray Tang / Rex Features
Foreign nationals are to be denied the right to obtain legal aid for civil cases until they have lived in Britain for at least a year, the justice secretary Chris Grayling will announce this week.
In the latest example of a tougher approach on immigration, Grayling said the government was particularly keen to target people who come to Britain for "extraordinarily short periods of time" and then claim legal aid to fund custody battles.
Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Grayling said he hoped the changes would ensure that illegal immigrants, failed asylum seekers and people on tourist or student visas would no longer be able to apply for legal aid for civil cases.
He said: "There are a number of areas where somebody who comes to this country even on a tourist visa can access civil legal aid. We are going to change that. There have been examples of people who have come to the country for extraordinarily short periods of time who have had a relationship breakdown and then they end up in our courts at our expense to determine custody of the children."
"This will exclude people who enter the country illegally, who up to now have been able to access our legal aid system in a way I don't think should ever have happened."The changes are designed to help the government cut the £1.7bn legal aid budget by £300m. Grayling said that QCs "should reasonably expect" not to earn more than the prime minister's salary of £142,000 in cases funded by the state.
In other changes prisoners will be banned from claiming legal aid for any cases that do not relate to the length of their sentence. "I am proposing to take legal aid away from prisoners who don't like the prison they are in, or don't like the cell they are in, or don't like a part of the regime," Grayling said.
The government has briefed its crackdown on legal aid for overseas nationals on numerous occasions as it seeks to show that it is taking tough action before the lifting of restrictions on Romania and Bulgaria next January But the restrictions on legal aid are unlikely to apply to citizens from those countries because any limits have to apply to all EU citizens, including those from Britain.
E SE ALGUM DIA DEVOLVEREM TODOS OS QUE AQUI NACIONALIZARAM VAI SER MUITO BONITO VAI...
Email