Legal Aid for Hepatitis C victims

Thursday 31 August 2000

The Scottish Legal Aid Board today said that, contrary to recent media reports, no decision has yet been taken on whether to grant civil legal aid to haemophiliacs who allegedly contracted the Hepatitis C blood virus as a result of hospital treatment.

Media reports suggested that the Board had refused applications for civil legal aid from the people involved and refused to fund continued investigation of hepatitis claims. In fact, these applications have not yet reached the stage where the Board can give a decision on granting full civil legal aid because the Board has not received all the necessary information from the Scottish Solicitors Hepatitis Group, which represents those involved.

The Board encourages solicitors to form groups to co-ordinate and progress multiple claims of this kind. Initial work in such cases would be carried out using a form of legal aid called advice and assistance. This means that the costs of common work is shared between all the people involved and the results are then also shared. This helps to prevent any individual bearing all the costs of obtaining generic evidence and it prevents duplication of costs and effort in each applicant having to address the same issues.

Under advice and assistance solicitors can do work up to an initial level of expenditure and if they then require to carry out additional work, they must seek the Board's authority to do this. The Board must be satisfied that the additional work represents a reasonable expenditure of public funds.

The media reports on this matter also stated that full legal aid had been granted for similar cases in England and as a result test cases were to be heard next month. As we said at the time, the legal aid system in Scotland is different from that in England and this type of multiple application is dealt with in a different way. In Scotland, the legislation governing the provision of legal aid does not allow for payments to be made to solicitors in advance of preliminary investigative work being carried out, as can be done in England.

Chairman Jean Couper said: "The Board has not refused civil legal aid to these claimants, nor have we refused to fund continued investigation of these claims. To date, the Board is unable to decide whether to grant full civil legal aid to claimants because we have not received all the necessary information from the Scottish Solicitors Hepatitis Group which represents those involved.

We have discussed the situation with the Scottish Solicitors Hepatitis Group and explained the way in which we must deal with the applications for legal aid and requests for funding generic research. We are happy to continue to liaise with the Group but we must work within the legislation to progress the matter. I very much hope that any other people who contracted Hepatitis C in a similar manner are not deterred from seeking legal advice as a result of the erroneous reports stating that the Board had refused legal aid for such cases."

For further information please contact: Fiona Shaw at the Scottish Legal Aid Board on 0131 226 7061.

The Scottish Legal Aid Board is a non-departmental public body which assesses legal aid applications and scrutinises and pays accounts submitted by solicitors and advocates. It also provides advice to the Scottish Ministers on legal aid matters.