I think that this really is one of the biggest problems with democracy at the moment. The ideal of citizens being able to test and contest the boundaries of law and overreach, to establish precedent and revisit interpretations of the law is crucial to the functioning of democracy. When this is out of the reach (due to financial or time constraints), then the democracy is not going to function properly, it is these mechanisms that are supposed to restrain the power that we give to government.
Without these mechanisms being easily applied by citizens, then we start to lose faith in the democratic system and start to look for alternatives that might initially look appealing but might be worse in the long run.