October 17, 2016

Imagine our country without access to justice

We support access to justice and legal representation wholeheartedly.

The work done by the Foundation and these charities is vital to making this possible, particularly for our most vulnerable members of society. The demand for free legal advice centres is not going anywhere, but unfortunately, for those who need it the most, the funding and availability of support services is rapidly reducing across the UK.

To help you understand the importance of free legal representation, we’ve picked five areas of our society and shown five ways our country would be impacted without this critical support network:

Debt: Without high quality advice to help people calculate how much they owe and take action quickly, the situation could spiral out of control – relationship and family breakdowns, mortgage/ rent arrears and ultimately rising numbers of homelessness and unemployment.

Families: Many people can feel unsupported and alone. Without the advice to help them cope with the pressures of family life, this could lead to mental health issues becoming exacerbated for individuals and families being separated.

Housing: Some people are in situations where they don’t know their rights and responsibilities. When threatened with eviction, or unable to manage their mortgage repayments, they would have nowhere to turn for professional legal support.

Employment:  Being bullied at work, facing discrimination or injured but not able to get justice or compensation. People in this situation would have to suffer alone and in silence.

Immigration: For non-EU citizens wanting to move to the UK, they would be unable to work or deal with immigration applications, Home Office delays, and nationality or asylum matters.

We hope you can agree that without organisations offering free legal advice, the UK would be a much poorer place. Through their services, many in the UK can be reassured and confident that they will be able to have legal representation to help them to protect their rights and improve their quality of life.

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