The Legal Aid in Criminal and Care Proceedings (General) (Amendment) Regulations 1998

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Legal Aid in Criminal and Care Proceedings (General) Regulations 1989 so as to—

(a) change the reference to Chief Clerk in the definition of the appropriate officer to Court Manager following a change of name (regulation 2);

(b) make provision for appeals to the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords made on behalf of a dead person pursuant to section 44A of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, as inserted with effect from 1st January 1996 by section 7 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995. Where the appellant is the personal representative of the dead person, a special form is prescribed comprising both the application for legal aid and the statement of means, and the appellant’s financial resources are taken to be those of the dead person’s estate; in other cases the actual or deemed financial resources of the appellant, rather than of the dead person, are taken into account (regulations 3, 6, 8, 13 and 17);

(c) provide that an application for the review of a decision by a magistrates' court or a justices' clerk to refuse a legal aid order may not be made if it concerns an offence mentioned in Schedule 2 to the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 and by virtue of section 22 of that Act, the offence is triable only summarily (regulations 4 and 5);

(d) allow the Legal Aid Board to investigate and make a report to the court or the proper officer on the financial resources of a person who has applied for or is receiving legal aid in cases which have been referred to the Board (regulations 7, 9, 11 and 12);

(e) to make further provision for a deduction to be made for a dependent child or a dependent relative aged 19 or over when computing the income of a person during the assessment of his resources in respect of an application for a legal aid order (regulation 18);

(f) amend the provisions for the computation of the income and capital of an applicant for legal aid to clarify that assets subject to a Mareva injunction or other freezing order are still treated as belonging to the applicant, unless he has applied for assets to be released for the purposes of the case and been refused (regulation 19);

(g) increase the income limit for non-contributory criminal legal aid from £50 per week to £51 per week (regulation 20);

(h) amend Form 6 in Schedule 2 to reflect the changes made by regulation 20 (regulation 16); and

(i) make other minor amendments (regulations 10, 14 and 15).