Six month reprieve for Community Law Centres

The Ministry of Justice has told us that funding for all Community Law Centres including Auckland Disability Law will now continue until December 2013.

Community Law Centre contracts had been due to expire on 30 June 2013.

We are obviously pleased to be able to tell you that we are now able to keep providing free legal services to disabled people in the Auckland region for an extra six months.

However, we know you will be concerned that this is only a short term solution.

Before Christmas we wrote to Justice Minister Judith Collins to thank her for her commitment to Auckland Disability Law and to acknowledge our shared aspiration that our services could be extended nationally.

The Minister wrote back to advise us that her officials will keep working on plans for the long term future of Community Law Centres. We hope to hear more about that when we meet with the Ministry and all the other Community Law Centres in Wellington in early April.

In the meantime, we urge you to continue to support your local Community Law Centre, and to stay in touch for updates. Your lobbying last year certainly made a difference. It is essential that we continue to remind our funders of the need for specialist direct community legal services for disabled people, and that these services should be available across New Zealand.

Thank you for your ongoing support.
ends

© Scoop Media