Only one legal aid provider in whole of East and West Sussex with limited capacity
As highlighted on the Justice Gap on Monday, a new report from academics at the University of Sussex Migration Law Clinic looks at the major challenges asylum seekers and migrants face trying to obtain legal advice and representation in the Brighton and Hove area.
You can download the 28-page report here.
The report notes that a shortfall in cost-free immigration and asylum law advice and representation in Brighton and Hove is part of a nationwide problem, which has grown significantly following the introduction of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO).
Using the terminology of the University of Sussex's Jo Wilding, Brighton and Hove is identified as an 'advice drought' area.
Interviews with solicitors and legal advisors carried out for the report identified that there were three legal providers in Brighton and Hove, but only one provided cost-free legal services under the legal aid framework, and this was restricted to work concerning unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and domestic violence cases. The nearest solicitors' firms offering legal aid funded immigration services are in London.
The report explains: "Brighton Housing Trust remains the only provider of legal aid-funded representation for immigration and asylum cases in the whole of East and West Sussex. Its capacity is limited. The only solicitors' firm providing legal aid immigration and asylum work in the area ceased taking on legal aid work following legal aid reforms in 2012, stating that legal aid work was no longer financially viable. The geographically nearest firms taking on legal aid immigration work are in Croydon. However, even when people are willing to travel to Croydon or London, they are still often unable to find a legal representative who is able or willing to represent them out of their geographic area. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that Brighton and Hove is increasingly being used as a dispersal area for new asylum seekers. While their claims are technically in scope for legal aid, many struggle to find a legal representative."
It was the lack of legal aid in Brighton and Hove that prompted members of the University of Sussex to introduce a Migration Law Clinic (MLC) to provide a cost-free legal advice service, to help those who could not access legal advice elsewhere.
The MLC is operated by a team of final year undergraduate law students, supervised by two practicing immigration and asylum law barristers.
Section 5 of the report examines the MLC and details the scope of its service. While it is not able to provide legal representation, it provides free legal advice on a range of issues:
- Initial asylum claims, asylum appeals and fresh claims;
- Claims for leave to remain based on family or private life (Article 8 ECHR);
- Refugee family reunion (and non-refugee applications for leave to enter the UK to join family);
- Claims for leave to remain as the victim of domestic violence;
- Nationality/citizenship
The report notes: "At the time of writing, the MLC has provided substantive legal advice to 57 members of the public. The range of issues has varied widely and has involved particularly serious cases, including: family reunion applications for young refugees who have experienced traumatic events and whose family remain in difficult and potentially dangerous circumstances in their country of origin; people who have been refused asylum and are now destitute due to their immigration status; parents at risk of being removed from the UK and separated from their children and victims of domestic violence who have lost their spousal visas after fleeing the abusive relationship."
While the MLC is found to offer a beneficial service, the authors of the report acknowledge that it would be unrealistic to suggest that it comes anywhere close to filling the gap in immigration and asylum law services that have resulted from the cuts to legal aid.
The report makes a number of recommendations, both for the further development of the MLC and more generally for national legal policymakers.
General recommendations include reinstating legal aid for immigration cases, and amending the payment system for legal aid solicitors and barristers to remove the fixed fee scheme and return to hourly rates.
For the MLC, the report recommends that the clinic's services should be expanded to include full legal representation.
In concluding, the authors stress: " A final, and crucial, point to consider is the gravity of the cases in this area of law. While the perception may be that members of the public are generally only prepared to bring relatively minor legal issues to student law clinics, the extent of need in immigration and asylum law is such that once an institution offers free legal advice in this area, it is likely to receive a significant number of requests for help with extremely serious issues. More so than in other areas of law, people who rely on immigration law clinics are prone to suffer from trauma, language barriers and societal alienation. Consequently, the level of need is great. Any university that is considering establishing an immigration law clinic should therefore ensure that they provide sufficient resources (including supervision hours) to ensure that it can honour this responsibility."