Barristers are stepping up their protest against legal aid cuts with a mass walk-out today (March 7), which will see them refuse to turn up to court or cover other members’ cases.
Members of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) agreed that they “will no longer be available/will not work during the day of 7th March”. Interestingly, the date coincides with a nationally co-ordinated training day for solicitors, including training at the Law Society.
It was also announced that ‘individual members of the CBA have decided that, with effect from 7 March, they will ‘suspend their willingness to undertake returns for other members of the Bar and will only do their own work.’
However, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has written to barristers instructing them that they may lose work if they join in the walk out, with the letter declaring that the relationship between the CPS and barristers is “a customer/supplier relationship built on trust and the regular provision of a reliable service.”
It adds that if barristers decide not to honour their professional commitments in respect of CPS instructions, then their own actions could cause “a detrimental impact on the positive relationship that we have hitherto enjoyed”.
Today’s action is a significant escalation on lawyers’ position in January, when they held a half-day strike during the first week of the month, and highlights the escalating bitterness of the dispute.
Many lawyers rely on legal aid payments for both prosecuting and defending criminal cases but the Ministry of Justice plans to cut some fees by up to 30 per cent, which both the CBA and solicitors’ representatives say is not necessary, as the saving will happen naturally through falling crime and improving efficiencies in the courts.