Legal Aid Changes
Simon Power has just announced some changes to the legal aid system. The two major ones are:
- A new quality assurance framework where legal aid lawyers will have to demonstrate competency to a selection committee on objective criteria.
- Expanding the Public Defence Service to Wellington, Christchurch, and Hamilton.
The Auckland Public Defence Service has been quite successful, so good to see it is expanding.
Hopefully the competency demonstration requirement will help solve the problem of delays caused by incompetent counsel (which it seems is mainly a South Auckland problem).