Warsaw Bar speeches

INTERNATIONAL

Warsaw Bar speeches

The Warsaw Bar held its annual Modern Bar Association Conference virtually this year. Professor Sara Chandler QC (Hon) and Matthew Allan both spoke at the meeting. They had the benefit of a report compiled by the Law Society of England & Wales which addresses the issue of access to justice during the pandemic and the provision of legal services.

Matthew Allan, vice president of the Westminster and Holborn Law Society, opened the roundtable meeting and spoke about how the pandemic has affected the Society’s members and how our bar association has adapted since March 2020. He expanded upon the experiences of lawyers working in London during lockdown and briefly touched on the report produced by the national Law Society of England and Wales in September 2020, following the first UK lockdown. In the second presentation, Professor Chandler expand on the detail or the report. Law under lockdown: the impact of COVID-19 measures on access to justice and vulnerable people | The Law Society.

Matthew Allan explained that in many respects the pandemic has forced the courts, and those that use them in the UK, to accelerate their engagement with technology. Hearings were moved online, and lawyers, clients and judges all grappled with new forms of video conferencing, which in early March 2020 would have been the exception, rather than the rule.

Although there were issues surrounding access to justice, particularly for vulnerable people as Professor Chandler discusses, where matters were conducted primarily between lawyers there had not been an obvious impediment to online court hearings. In fact, the benefits were being felt by his colleagues in the form of reduced travel time (and costs) and paperless hearings. “The technology has made it possible to conduct complex, multi-party hearings and trials remotely, allowing justice to be done in a timely manner.” This was particularly apparent in his own practice which focussed on international litigation and arbitration, where tribunals such as the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce have remained equally as open as the UK to shift its workload online.

Matthew highlighted that despite the shift to online hearings, many courts remained operational during the lockdown, offering in-person trials, with the unfortunate increase in risks associated with that for those in attendance. Conversely, the negative impact of working from home for prolonged periods on all staff should not be underestimated. The knock-on effects, for example on supervision and feelings of isolation, have been widely reported: “This is without mentioning the negative implications working from home can have on other relationships, be that with housemates, partners, or children” particularly where space at home for an office is limited. He acknowledged that an ‘opt-in’ £6 per week tax rebate for all those working from home was welcomed but did little to compensate the feeling of living and working in the same space.

The Society’s offering for its members was also a talking point, particularly its focus on events relating to metal wellbeing in addition to the usual seminars offering legal awareness. This was echoed by all the speakers who recognised the importance for their members of having a community to engage with and to support each other. The similarity of experiences was striking from such a diverse panel, ranging from Moldova to Mexico and taking in European legal hubs such as Frankfurt, Warsaw and Milan.

Professor Chandler stated that in The Law Society report (link above), it analyses the impact of measures on the ability of vulnerable 1 people to access legal advice during the pandemic and makes recommendations for the government’s six-month review of the emergency measures.

People living in institutionalised settings, such as prisons, immigration detention centres, mental health units or care settings have been subjected to more restrictive conditions, including increased use of restraint and solitary confinement in some settings. They have had very limited contact with their family or their solicitor for prolonged periods, removing an essential element of external scrutiny of conditions in institutions’.

Professor Chandler’s full speech is available on the website. She concluded her speech summarising some findings and recommendations of The Law Society of England and Wales:

Access to justice in housing

■ The UK Government should consider bringing forward temporary measures allowing for judicial discretion in mandatory evictions, limited to the consideration of criteria related to the pandemic and resulting economic position of the tenant, and in the long term legislation to provide a preaction protocol so that a landlord cannot receive possession until the protocol has been applied.

Prisons and the secure estate for children

■ The Prison Service should expand its video and telephone facilities and provide adequate staff to enable all prisoners to access legal advice in a timely and confidential manner.

Mental health settings

■ The UK Government should encourage the National Health Service to ensure hospitals understand their obligation to allow visits to patients. Legal Aid Agency should extend non-means tested funding to those cases where the Court of Protection authorises the deprivation of liberty so that a patient has legal representation.

Immigration detention

■ Access of detainees to legal representatives during the lockdown should be reviewed, including collecting and publishing data where possible so that evaluation can be conducted, and also review policies on detaining and removing people during pandemics, considering the ability of those concerned to access legal advice at the time. For those denied access to public funds, such as sickness benefit and social security the Government should permit legal aid for such applications.

Those at risk of domestic abuse

■ The UK Government should reinstate non-means tested legal aid for victims of domestic abuse and allow solicitors to certify that an individual is a victim of domestic abuse for the purposes of obtaining legal aid.

■ The UK Government should seek to ensure adequate funding for services to support victims and survivors of abuse as the COVID-19 crisis continues and into the future and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner should be consulted as part of future lockdown planning to ensure that protecting victims remains a key priority.

Access to services and safeguards

■ The UK Government should conduct an evaluation on the preparedness of children’s social care services for future emergency situations, with a focus on the least restrictive means through which to respond.

■ When reducing individual rights and safeguards in relation to the provision of public services it must be ensured that appropriate routes to redress remain open and accessible, including access to solicitors and independent complaints or inspection processes.

These are the 8 recommendations which affect the most vulnerable people in accessing justice and protecting their life and liberty.

The International Committee were delighted to be asked to contribute to his event and very much hope that in 2022 we will be able to attend in person. ■

1. Throughout the report the term ‘vulnerable’ is used to refer, variously, to an individual or group that possesses a characteristic that may increase their vulnerability (such as age or mental capacity), or could be considered vulnerable due to their circumstances (for example, living in an institutionalised setting, at risk of domestic abuse or having insecure legal status). The precise meaning of this term depends on the context.