Cuts to legal aid funding in criminal cases could delay bail hearings, force innocent people to spend longer in jail and cause a “crisis” in the bail courts, say defence lawyers and the union representing more than 350 Legal Aid Ontario staff lawyers. The cuts announced Wednesday include ending legal aid funding for private criminal lawyers to conduct bail hearings for $300, instead requiring almost all bail hearings to be conducted by duty counsel. Duty counsel are legal aid funded lawyers who, when assigned to bail court, assist people who don’t yet have a lawyer or cannot afford one. “This is going to create, as far as we are concerned, a crisis in the bail courts,” said Dana Fisher, spokesperson for the Legal Aid Ontario Lawyers’ union. She said the impact of the cuts will fall disproportionately onto racialized and vulnerable people who are overrepresented in the population who meet the low-income requirement for legal aid.

Source: thestar June 12, 2019 23:48 UTC