Repeal (with savings) of legal aid user charges and interest on unpaid debt
When introduced as a Government Bill in 2022, the Legal Services Amendment Bill 2022 (190-1) (explanatory note) stated:
“The Legal Services Amendment Bill … implements the Government’s decision to strengthen legal aid so as to improve access to legal assistance for people with low incomes. There are cost barriers to accessing legal assistance. Those barriers are the user charge, which is payable by most civil and family legal aid applicants, and the interest that is charged on unpaid legal aid debt.
“The Bill removes those barriers by repealing the provisions in the Legal Services Act 2011 relating to the payment of the user charge and the payment of interest on an unpaid legal aid debt.”
The “Government’s decision to strengthen legal aid” was a reference to the legal aid initiatives announced in Budget 2022 (discussed in a previous post).
As explained in another post, initial regulatory amendments were made via the Legal Services Amendment Regulations 2022 to halt (in practice) further user charges and interest on unpaid legal aid debt from 1 January 2023. The August 2023 amendments now officially repeal/revoke the user charge and interest provisions.
The amendments in the 2011 Act are to ss 4, 18A, 33, 40, 43, 44, 97, 99, 114 and sch 1AA.
The amendments in the 2011 Regulations are to regs 9A, 9B, 14 and 14A (all revoked).
The effect of the new savings provisions (cls 3, 4 and 5) in sch 1AA of the 2011 Act is that pre-2023 user charges and interest remain payable.
The amendments, along with related updating of commentary, are now in Legal Services (online ed, Thomson Reuters) on Westlaw New Zealand: see Legal Services — What’s New.
Kevin Leary is a Senior Legal Editor in the New Zealand Analytical Law team at Thomson Reuters. He has more than 20 years' experience as an editor of bound books, looseleafs, precedents and their digital equivalents.