Access to justice policy: legal aid in post-war UK general election manifestos

Abstract

This paper explores access to justice policy in England and Wales. This is achieved through a legal history approach analysing the treatment of, an important element of such policy, legal aid in UK general election manifestos. The paper covers the period from 1945, with the creation of the welfare state and the introduction of a formal legal aid system. It focuses on the two main parties that have led all the governments of that period, the Conservative and Unionist Party (Conservatives) and the Labour Party (Labour). The paper charts the rise and fall of legal aid in the general election manifesto, documenting an access to justice policy that falls into two distinct eras of social democracy and neoliberalism.