NOT GUILTY! Erm Pay Up!

http://www.pistonheads.com/news/defa...?storyId=20842

Read it and weap

Slightly innacurate article but nevertheless disturbing premise.

The article suggests court fees and legal representation costs won't be able to be claimed back by a succesful defendant. In reality the proposal caps those costs at legal aid rates. So if you hire Super Expensive Lawyer to fight your case and you win, you'd currently get Super Expensive Lawyer's fees paid (assuming they are "reasonable") - with the new proposal you'd only get to claim back up to legal aid rates.

Now, I can see where they're coming from here to a degree - should other tax payers have to pay for your super expensive lawyer when a cheaper one could have done the job. Unfortunately legal aid rates are pitifully low, many firms won't even touch it.

In reality I suspect that if these proposals went through (and I hope they don't) the difference between the legal aid rate and the true cost of your defence would likely be made up by an insurance policy along no-win-no-fee type lines.

Yeah your right but its not the angle I was looking at it from.
What worried me is that an Officer could now issue a ticket for something you didnt do and it would actually work out cheaper for mr Joe Public to admit to a false offence than to fight it, win and clear their name.
What it all boils down to is the money, if I was accused of something I didnt do I'd be pretty confident that in court the truth would come out and all fees would then get covered by the courts. But now whats the point in going to court if its costs me more than just taking the fall. its a sad sad day.

If you were to **** off a copper they could just write you up (not suggesting they would Im sure they're all loverly) but do you see what I mean?

<rant>

Ridiculous.

"According to the Ministry of Justice, the age old principle of 'the loser pays' has been costing the government too much money."

Surely the solution would be, do everything possible to ensure that if a case reaches court it has a pretty good chance of succeeding. (i.e. ensure that there is sufficient evidence, that it was gathered correctly, etc)

I thought one of the reasons that the "loser pays" system was in place was to reduce motivation for bringing a weak / false case to court.

A bit like the way losing your no claims reduces the number of people who claim for minor damage, etc.


The rights of the individual need to come first here. If you are found innocent by a court of the charges brought against you then you should not be disadvantaged by the process. Its bad enough being dragged through court for something you didn't do, only to be then left with a bill at the end of it.

This just gives the government a license to adopt a "scatter gun" approach to motoring offences. i.e. Put as many cases as possible through the system

i.e if we win, we win. if we lose, who cares?

Also, why just motoring offences? Could it be because they have the potential to bring in the most money?

</rant>

point taken about capping the charges, but still it should be your right to chose your own representation. After all you face the risk of footing the bill if YOU lose.

[punyXpress]

" Yawn "
Yet another stealth tax with civil liberties overtones.
Not really a yawn issue, but will Brown,G stop at nothing?

[Biker Biggles]

Originally Posted by punyXpress

" Yawn "
Yet another stealth tax with civil liberties overtones.
Not really a yawn issue, but will Brown,G stop at nothing?

Is Cameron A going to reverse this?

if he does he's got my vote.

[CheGuevara]

On the flip-side, might this have saved Croft? From memory a very large portion of the judgement against them was the plaintiff's legal fees. As it seems fairly apparent their motivations for going after the circuit were sketchy at best, it seems likely they would have spent less money/effort on the case if they didn't have a chance of recovering their expenses.

Maybe it will save other circuits suffering a similar fate in the future.