Legal Aid - 1980- 1984

The case shown here are derived from the lawindexpro case law database. lawindexpro is a low cost case law database, with over 260,000 case listings, and over 200,000 links to full text judgments. The free service below shows the core information on the case, but is restricted in several ways. A small proportion of cases do allow access to the full lawindexpro information. These cases are selected at random, and may be different on your next visit. The active links through to lawindexpro are extremely powerful allowing full access to all linked cases.  

This page lists 2 cases, and was prepared on 28 October 2012.

Hanlon -v- The Law Society [1981] AC 124
1981 HL Lord Scarman, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, Lord Lowry	Legal Aid, Litigation Practice	Casemap 1 Citers
	The House considered the impact of the statutory charge under the 1974 Act in matrimonial proceedings. Held. The costs in respect of which the statutory charge bit were the costs of the whole divorce proceedings and not just the financial relief aspect. For property to have been 'recovered or transferred' for this purpose, its ownership or transfer had to have actually been in issue in the proceedings. The House gave guidance on the interpretation of Legal Aid Statutes: "The subsection, being an adaption for the benefit of the legal aid fund of Victorian legislation enacted for the benefit of solicitors, inevitably presents problems of interpretation. Two fall to be considered in this appeal. The first is to identify the proceedings to which the subsection applies. The second is to determine the meaning of the words 'recovered or preserved'" Lord Simon said: "property has been recovered or preserved if it has been in issue in the proceedings - recovered by the claimant if it has been the subject of a successful claim, preserved to the respondent if the claim fails. In either case it is a question of fact, not of theoretical 'risk.' In property adjustment proceedings, in my view, it is only property the ownership or transfer of which has been in issue which has been 'recovered or preserved' so as to be the subject of a legal aid charge. What has been in issue is to be collected as a matter of fact from pleadings, evidence, judgment and/or order. I can see no reason for extending the words to items of property the ownership or possession of which has never been questioned." As to the use of punctuation, Lord Lowry: "To ignore punctuation disregards the reality that literate people, such as parliamentary draftsmen, do punctuate what they write." Lord Lowry set out the circumstances in which a regulation made under a statutory power was admissible for the purpose of construing the statute under which it was made. Judges may look at the punctuation in order to interpret the meaning of legislation accepted by Parliament. Lord Scarman said that in most cases a reference to the legal aid certificate would determine the extent of the charge. In two cases where this would not be appropriate – the inclusion in the certificate of proceedings which ought not to have been included such as proceedings for which legal aid was not available and the inclusion in one certificate of two sets of proceedings for which separate certificates should have been issued.
	Legal Aid Act 1974

Re A Debtor Times, 19 February 1981
9 Feb 1981 CA Templeman LJ	Legal Aid	Casemap 1 Citers
	The husband opposed assisted proceedings brought by his wife, in which he was ordered to pay a sum of costs. He did not pay, and the Law Society brought proceedings against him for their recovery. He sought to set-off against that claim a debt allegedly owed to him by his wife. Held: The court referred to the machinery for the collection and administration of a costs order in favour of an assisted person: "[T]his means that the assisted person never obtains the slightest entitlement as beneficiary to a single penny payable by virtue of an order in his favour for costs . . . Any order for costs is only made in the name of the assisted person for the purposes of identification and taxation….No set-off can arise because the money never belongs to the assisted person; it belongs to the Legal Aid Fund."