Access to Justice Act 1999
The Access to Justice Act 1999 (AJA 1999) replaced the legal aid system established by the Legal Aid Act 1988 with the Community Legal Service and the Criminal Defence Service. The Act established the Legal Services Commission to administer legal aid funding, replacing the Legal Aid Board. The Act created the Community Legal Service Fund for civil legal aid and introduced the Funding Code to prioritise limited resources. The Act also made significant changes to the regulation of the legal profession, including the creation of the office of the Legal Services Ombudsman. The Act reformed conditional fee agreements (’no win, no fee’ arrangements) and the courts’ powers to award costs.
Legal area: Courts and judiciary law governs the structure, jurisdiction, and administration of the court system, and the independence and accountability of the judiciary.
Citation: Access to Justice Act 1999 (1999 c 22)
Full text: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/22
Key Provisions
- Part I: Community Legal Service (civil legal aid reform)
- Part II: Criminal Defence Service (criminal legal aid)
- Section 27: The Legal Services Commission (replacing Legal Aid Board)
- Part III: Legal Services Ombudsman (complaints about legal services)
- Section 54: Conditional fee agreements (success fees and insurance premiums)
- Schedule 2: The Funding Code (prioritisation of legal aid resources)
Significance
The Access to Justice Act 1999 introduced the ‘contracting’ system for legal aid, replacing the previous ‘green form’ scheme. The Funding Code prioritised cases according to their merits, leading to significant reductions in legal aid spending on ’less meritorious’ cases. The Legal Services Commission contracted firms and not-for-profit agencies to provide legal aid services. The reforms to conditional fee agreements (Part III) made CFA-backed litigation more attractive by allowing success fees and after-the-event insurance premiums to be recovered from losing defendants. The AJA 1999 was itself largely superseded by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO).