The Hillsborough Law: How will the ‘Public Office (Accountability) Bill’ improve the parity of representation between public authorities and bereaved plaintiffs?
- presidentprobosoc
- Feb 4
- 3 min read
Writer: Caroline O’Beirne
Editor: Ruqaiya Anser
Having been born and raised in Liverpool, the injustice of the Hillsborough disaster has loomed over my city. Not just the deaths of 97 people, but the lies and huge legal costs that were borne by the families of the victims due to the lack of legal aid, amounting to more than £63 million. To resolve this injustice, the ‘Public Office (Accountability) Bill’ is being debated in Parliament. When we consider the impact that pro-bono and legal aid can have on a case, will this bill succeed in furthering those values?
On the 15th of April 1989, Liverpool FC played against Nottingham Forest in the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. Despite the large group inside, the match commander, Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, ordered to open one of the gates and allowed around two thousand fans to enter the stadium via a tunnel against ‘already-packed tunnels’. This pressure led to a crush causing the deaths of 97 victims: 94 died at the stadium but 3 others have died since due to their injuries.
One of the most striking injustices about this case was the lack of legal aid and funding afforded towards the families. At the first inquest, whilst families received no funding, the senior police officers involved were assisted by five separate legal teams.
In order to correct this injustice for the future, the Hillsborough bill has four objectives. These are introducing a ‘duty of candour and assistance’, a new code of conduct which public servants must abide by, new offences and criminal sanctions for failing to follow these duties, and efforts to improve the ‘parity of representation’ in legal cases.
The parity of representation recognises the inequality in legal resources that the government can access but average members of the public cannot. The bill would expand non-means-tested legal aid to the ‘bereaved family members’ in cases where a public authority is involved. This includes both legal help, i.e. advice and assistance at inquiries, and one legal advocate per family. The bill also decrees that representation between all the relevant parties must be ‘necessary and proportionate’ to the, ‘affected persons in respect of their means to engage legal representations’.
According to the bill itself, a ‘public authority’ could include a ‘government department’, ‘a local authority’, the NHS, schools, the defence forces and many more. This is a huge scale to work with and could mean that many bereaved families who find themselves needing representation in a public inquiry won’t have to face the same costs and difficult application process the Hillsborough families did to pursue justice. But at the same time, how will this work out in reality?
A draft which was presented to the Hillsborough families earlier on in the year did not contain either any criminal sanctions, despite it being the main priority of the bill for the families nor any funding for legal representation.
There had been resistance from the Treasury due to their concerns over increasing government spending to fund the increase in legal aid. As bills make their way through the Commons, concessions are often made so it is difficult to see what real impact the bill will make if it were to achieve Royal Assent.
If it goes ahead, the introduction of non-means-tested legal aid across such a wide range of public inquiries would be a massive win for low-income families who are too often shut out of proper access to justice. It has the potential to level the justice playing field in a meaningful way, so long as the government follows through and turns promises into action.
As a fellow scouser, it’s great to see this thoughtful article. It is a huge injustice to have watched over the past decade as countless senior members of the police, the press & the government have escaped justice and it is commendable the work put in by the HFSG & Ian Bryne. Hopefully the attempts to water down the Bill are resisted and this Gov’t follows through on its promise to improve access to justice and prevent the sorts of miscarriages our city endured for so many decades.