YASMIN Qureshi MP has called on the government to take access to judicial reviews into account when it looks at legal aid again this year.

The representative for Bolton South East was speaking at a debate on legal aid in the House of Commons.

She said: “Judicial review is a key tool for ordinary people to challenge unjust and unlawful decisions by the state and other public bodies.

“Deep cuts to legal aid have undermined that ability, so will the Minister commit to reviewing legal aid funding for judicial review in the Government’s forthcoming legal aid review.”

Speaking to to The Bolton News Ms Qureshi said she wanted the Government to reverse its reforms that have restricted access to judicial reviews.

She said: “I believe there’s no point having rights if you have no means of exercising them.

“If people think there are lots of frivolous cases going to the High Court and public money is being wasted you first have to get leave to appeal by a judge.A lot of bad cases will fail at that stage, there are checks and balances already in the system to weed out the weak.”