YOUNG LEGAL AID LAWYERS WIN LIBERTY HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD

We are very pleased to announce that at last night’s Liberty Human Rights Awards 2010, Young Legal Aid Lawyers won the Young Person of the Year award. The judges said that the award was given in recognition of YLAL’s “outstanding commitment to providing quality representation, advice and access to justice for those who could otherwise not afford it”.

The awards ceremony was held at the Southbank Centre in front of an audience including politicians, senior lawyers and campaigners.

Accepting the award on behalf of the group, Laura Janes, chair of YLAL thanked the judges, the YLAL committee and membership (now at over 2000) but asked the audience to help YLAL continue its fight for access to justice for everyone.

Laura Janes commented that “legal aid is in its darkest hour: the green paper published this November is an assault on the integrity of the justice system as free or affordable access to justice will become the preserve of the very poorest people in the most desperate of situations. As the late Lord Bingham said, the inability of the poor litigant to access justice is the enemy of the rule of law. As long as the government continues to make laws, it must take responsibility for making sure that everyone can access them.”

The Liberty Human Rights Awards 2010 “aim to honour those individuals and organisations dedicated to protecting and promoting the rights of others”. For further information on the awards themselves please see
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/about/human-rights-awards/index.php