227.3
Comparison of Legal Aid in Belgium, France and the Netherlands: Do Remuneration Systems Influence the Evolution of Contentious Mass?
Frédéric Schoenaers, Kathleen Adelaire, Christophe Mincke, Laurent Nisen, Jean-François Reynaert
In Belgium, the current system of remuneration for legal aid causes dissatisfaction both among government authorities and lawyers. In addition, the adoption of the “Salduz law”, which allows any person heard for the first time by the police or a judge to be assisted by a lawyer, is going to weigh on the use of the legal aid. Legal aid has experienced strong growth in recent years in Belgium (+ 229.26% of closed cases between 1998 and 2011). It is useful to observe whether this growth is present in other European countries. We selected France and the Netherlands. This contribution presents a comparison of the modes of organization of legal aid in the three countries as well as of the modalities for financing it. Secondly this contribution aims to compare the evolution of the mass of disputes benefiting from legal aid. We see that beyond the differences between the three countries, the use of legal aid is constantly growing. We will attempt to provide an interpretation of this fact by mobilizing the following explanatory factors: higher income limits allowing more people to access to legal aid with a strengthening effect due to the current economic crisis in northern Europe, a better information of the citizens (by media or advertising by lawyers), a new "grammar of responsibility", a phenomenon of juridicisation, the development of new public policies and the development of new "rights."