Despite a lot of protest about the rules on Legal Costs, the judiciary seem determined to press ahead with drastic changes which are time tabled for April 2013.
We believe that the victims of abuse in childhood could be affected by the changes, and are encouraging you to send a letter (click here) to your local MP, in the hope that, the rules will be changed to make things fairer.
To find your local MP click here
In summary:-
- A lot of lobbying has been done by those who have to pay legal costs like insurance companies to drive down costs.
- The bad publicity brought about by the costs of whiplash injury claims, and PPI Claims Management companies have persuaded various MP’s, and the Prime Minister to change the rules in order to make litigation “cheaper”.
- The impact on cases such as abuse litigation has not been properly thought through.
- We hope that the compensation abuse victims receive will not be affected, but we will not know properly until the rules are brought into force.
- The new rule removes the principle of the “importance to the Claimant”, which we feel disrespects the feelings of the victim of abuse.
To read the full text of our letter to the rules committee, click this link
To read a mildly optimistic reply from the Right Honourable Lord Justice Moore-Bick, please click this link– (the file is in TIFF Format, which is a universally recognised image format)
Again also in TIFF format you can read the less optimistic reply from the Ministry of Justice, which perhaps treads on abuse survivors toes a little too much by the time one gets to the second page – click this link