Court of Protection fixed costs come into force
A practice direction has come into force setting out the fixed costs that may be claimed by solicitors and public authorities acting in Court of Protection proceedings and the fixed amounts of remuneration that may be claimed by solicitors and office holders in public authorities appointed to act as deputies.
The court may direct that its provisions shall also apply to other professionals acting as deputy, including accountants, case managers and not-for-profit organisations.
The practice direction applies where the period covered by the category of fixed costs or remuneration ends on or after 1 April 2017 relating to fixed costs issued by the Court of Protection. However, solicitors and office holders in public authorities should continue to claim the rates applicable in the previous practice directions and practice notes, where the period covered by the category of fixed costs or remuneration ended before 1 April 2017.
Legal aid claim for human rights court work rejected
The Legal Aid Agency was right to refuse to allow payments claimed by claimant solicitors for work done on certain applications to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the High Court has ruled.
In R (on the application of Minton Morrill Solicitors) v The Lord Chancellor [2017] EWHC 612 (Admin), Mr Justice Kerr found that the Access to Justice Act 1999 and the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 excluded funding for work done on such applications.
The Lord Chancellor submitted that the two statutes did not permit legal aid funding for work done on applications to the ECtHR because the work was a service, using the words of the 1999 Act, “relating to… law other than that of England and Wales”, and because the law applicable to claims in the ECtHR was not “relevant for determining any issue relating to the law of England and Wales”.
Kerr J concluded that solicitors who prepared applications to the ECtHR did not provide services relating to the law of England and Wales.
Photo: The European Court of Human Rights, by Davide Restivo (cropped)
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