Day 157 - 18 Jul 95 - Page 43
1 national or social origin in association with the national
2 minority, property, birth or other status."
3
4 My Lord, Article 6, which I have just read, was, as your
5 Lordship heard this morning (and I will not go back to it)
6 given an interpretation in X v. Sweden on 30th June 1959.
7 Following that, there was the decision in Airey v. Ireland
8 on 9th October 1979. I do not know if your Lordship has
9 that? Did I hand up a copy?
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
12
13 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, this case, like X v. Sweden, was a
14 matrimonial case. The passage which your Lordship might be
15 interested in is on page 317. This is a judgment of the
16 court and not a decision of the Commission which is in the
17 right-hand column, page 317.
18
19 In the second complete paragraph, the judgment says this:
20 "It would be erroneous to generalise the conclusion that
21 the possibility to appear in person before the High Court
22 does not provide Mrs. Airey with an effective right of
23 access. That conclusion does not hold good for all cases
24 concerning civil rights and obligations or for everyone
25 involved therein. In certain eventualities, the
26 possibility of appearing before a court in person, even
27 without a lawyer's assistance, will meet the requirements
28 of Article 6.1. There maybe occasions when such a
29 possibility secures adequate access even to the High Court.
30 Indeed, much must depend on the particular
31 circumstances."
32
33 My Lord, I will not read the next paragraph but I will, if
34 I may, go on to the paragraph after that: "The conclusion
35 appearing at the end of paragraph 24 above does not,
36 therefore, imply that the State must provide free Legal Aid
37 for every dispute relating to a civil right. To hold that
38 so far reaching an obligation exists would, the court
39 agrees, sit ill with the fact that the Convention contains
40 no provision on Legal Aid for those disputes, article 6.3C
41 dealing only with criminal proceedings.
42
43 However, despite the absence of a similar clause for civil
44 litigation, Article 6.1 may sometimes compel the State to
45 provide for the assistance of a lawyer when such assistance
46 proves indispensable for an effective access to court
47 either because legal representation is rendered compulsory,
48 as is done by the domestic law of certain contracting
49 states, for various types of litigation or by reason of the
50 complexity of the procedure or of the case".
51
52 My Lord, I pause there to observe two things: First, that
53 this passage is all about the provision of full Legal Aid
54 for representation by lawyers in court. A fortiori
55 whatever might follow from that will embrace the relatively
56 minor matter of the provision of a daily transcript.
57
58 Secondly, though there are, as your Lordship observed this
59 morning, areas of this case which are both complex and
60 difficult, those areas of the case are largely in the past
