Statutory Charge

Morgan and others v Legal Aid Board (Ch D WLR 24 April)

Section 16(7) of the Legal Aid Act 1988 gave the Legal Aid Board the right to a charge over property ‘recovered or preserved’ by the legally aided litigant if it was in issue in the proceedings or if it was property recovered or preserved in substitution for property in issue. There is no justification for extending the charge to assets which, while included in a settlement agreement, were extraneous to the issues in the proceedings. The words in the section ‘The rights of a person under any settlement arrived at to [bring] the proceedings to an end’ were essentially directed towards extending the scope of s16(6) to substitutions, namely to property which was included in the terms of a settlement and which, while not in issue itself, in some way represented or replaced property or rights in issue.