Authors:Legal Action Group
Created:2024-03-27
Last updated:2024-03-28
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As the Ministry of Justice continues with its
review of civil legal aid (by asking, yet again, questions that have already been answered), in Victoria, the Australians are taking a different approach. The
Public Understanding of Law Survey (PULS), led by the Victoria Law Foundation research team, seeks to investigate the legal needs and capability of the community to enable a more targeted approach, addressing the deficits in legal need and capability through a change in policy and practice. The findings, to be published in three volumes, will help reshape and optimise limited resources and services, and the researchers hope, ultimately democratise justice.
This world-first report on legal capability provides a starting point to better understand what is needed for people to achieve fair outcomes for issues in our lives which might have a legal solution, what are known as justiciable problems.
The PULS is a large-scale face-to-face survey of 6,008 people across Victoria, exploring how they understand, experience and navigate law and everyday life problems with a legal dimension.
The
first volume (published on 30 August 2023), concerning everyday problems and legal need, found:
Justiciable problems are common, but often anything but mundane. They can be among the most challenging and traumatic episodes in people’s lives.
Problems don’t occur in isolation, they lead on from one another, extend to wider social problems and are inextricably linked to disadvantage. Their impact is significant and the knock-on costs to public services and individuals huge.
The
second volume (published on 7 February 2024), concerning legal understanding and capability, covered people’s:
•understanding of rights and responsibilities;
•confidence in being able to get fair resolution of justiciable problems;
•practical legal literacy relating to the ability to obtain, understand and navigate information and services that are needed to deal with everyday justiciable problems;
•perceptions of the relevance of law and how they see it in their everyday lives;
•perceptions of the accessibility of lawyers;
•trust in lawyers; and
•digital capability for legal-type tasks.
The researchers found:
The data show variable levels of legal capability, unequal distribution of elements of it, and clear links to disadvantage. The findings put inequality of capability alongside inequality of legal need and problem experience as set out in volume 1, adding another layer of inequality in access to justice.
Legal capability matters. Poor legal skills, low legal confidence and negative attitudes to law all limit our ability to deal with issues in our lives which might have a legal solution (justiciable problems), which consequently reduces prospects of a just resolution.
Legal capability is not equally distributed, and like legal need and the experience of justiciable problems, the evidence demonstrates it is tied to disadvantage. The more extensive the inequality of capability, the greater the potential impact on fair and equal access to justice.
Policy makers and practitioners need to pay heed to legal capability, its social patterning, and the implications of different types of deficit on capability. Better understanding legal capability can lead to more effective service provision, more efficient systems, and deliver people-centred justice.
The PULS is the most significant attempt to quantify both legal capability and legal need to date, and provides unprecedented insight into levels and patterns in Victoria. It is an approach that could be usefully deployed in England and Wales. The relationships and dependencies of both datasets will be further explored in the third volume to build a better understanding of legal capability in the community.