A report published by the New Zealand Law Society (NZLS) Thursday revealed that New Zealand’s access to justice is at risk. In the past 12 months, more than 20,000 people were denied the representation of a legal aid lawyer.

The report’s findings were informed by the largest survey ever undertaken on New Zealand’s legal profession.

Legal aid is government-funded, allowing people who would not otherwise be able to access legal representation to retain a lawyer. A fundamental issue with the legal aid program in New Zealand evident from the report is that legal aid is a loan. While some persons are not required to repay the government for the legal aid they receive, many others have to.

The country’s Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008 require that lawyers do not refuse to accept instructions from prospective clients unless certain exceptions apply, one of which is if the lawyer has a lack of available time for the instructions. According to the report, this exception is prominently relied upon. In the past year alone, 50 percent of lawyers and 75 percent of legal aid lawyers have had to refuse instructions from prospective clients.

President of the NZLS, Tiana Epati, attributed the access to legal aid issues to the low volume of legal aid lawyers in the country: only 2,000 legal aid lawyers actively undertake such work. The number of legal aid lawyers decreased with the advent of COVID-19. Increasing the number of legal aid lawyers will be challenging given 49 percent of the hours lawyers work on a legal aid case are not remunerated, according to the report, and the administrative process to a lawyer becoming approved to provide legal aid services has become a barrier.

Epati commented:

Aotearoa New Zealand’s legal aid system is collapsing…vulnerable people who cannot afford lawyers and seek legal aid, are not getting it because the number of lawyers undertaking legal aid has diminished. Legal aid lawyers are unable to cope with demand, are too poorly paid to deal with the complex cases they have, so they quit the legal aid system.

Epati has also implored the country’s government to immediately address the access to justice issues detailed in the report.