Criminal Barristers Refuse Returns

[snoozeofreason]

I haven't updated this thread for a while, but the unfinished business left by the suspension of the CBA strike remains unfinished. Brandon Lewis, during his brief tenure as Justice Secretary agreed to implement the recommendation in the Bellamy Review for a 15% increase in legal aid fees paid to criminal barristers. But prosecuting barristers and defence solicitors fared less well. As mentioned in the previous post, the increase in fees to defence barristers has not been matched by an increase in the fees the CPS pays to the independent barristers it engages to prosecute, and cases are collapsing all over the country because prosecutors cannot be found.

Lewis (and Raab before and before him) have also failed to implement the Bellamy recommendation of a 15% increase in legal aid fees to criminal defence solicitors. As a result the Law Society have just announced their intention to seek a judicial review.

The Bellamy review, published towards the end of 2021, recommended an immediate 15% uplift in fees for solicitors and barristers as soon as possible. Publishing the government's final response a year later, the Ministry of Justice said solicitor firms would see a total fee increase of around 11%. Today, Chancery Lane [The Law Society] said it has sent a pre-action letter to the government.

Society president Lubna Shuja said: ‘We argue the lord chancellor’s decision not to remunerate solicitors by the bare minimum 15%, which the independent review said was needed immediately over a year ago to prevent the collapse of the criminal defence sector, is unlawful, as is the decision not to take action to address the risk of local market failure.

‘We are seeking a commitment by the government to withdraw both decisions and reconsider them within a mutually agreed timetable. If not, we will issue a judicial review seeking an order to quash them.’

The graph below (taken from the Law Society Gazette) gives an indication of the scale of the problem, and is revealing from both a relative and an absolute perspective. In relative terms, it shows that the number of duty solicitors for legal aid has fallen by 25% just in the last five years. In absolute terms it shows that England and Wales, with a population of around 60 million, has only 3,600 such solicitors. Increasing their fees in the way Bellamy recommends would cost - in macroeconomic terms - peanuts (there are figures for the total legal aid budget upthread). Restoring their numbers to something consistent with a civilised democracy would also be cheap . The criminal justice system is falling apart in front of our eyes, many of the problems could be fixed cheaply and simply, and the government simply refuses to do that.

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[snoozeofreason]

Lewis (and Raab before and before him) have also failed to implement the Bellamy recommendation of a 15% increase in legal aid fees to criminal defence solicitors. As a result the Law Society have just announced their intention to seek a judicial review.

The High Court has just granted the Law Society permission to take their criminal legal aid case to judicial review.

“The High Court’s decision to grant us permission to bring a judicial review challenge against the government is a significant and positive step forward in our fight to safeguard the future of the criminal justice system,” said Law Society of England and Wales president Lubna Shuja.

Duty solicitors continue to leave criminal legal aid work in their droves because the work is not financially viable.

Our research launched in June 2023 shows that more than 1,400 duty solicitors have left since 2017– a 26% drop.

We predict 618 more duty solicitors could be lost by 2027.

This could leave many people without access to a lawyer when they desperately need expert advice, putting the whole criminal justice system at risk.

The article I linked to above gives some sobering accounts of the experiences of duty solicitors (the first of the links in the article is broken, correct links are here and here).

If anyone is interested in finding how the number of duty solicitors has declined in their local area (outside London) then the Law Society has data here.

[snoozeofreason]

Lewis (and Raab before and before him) have also failed to implement the Bellamy recommendation of a 15% increase in legal aid fees to criminal defence solicitors. As a result the Law Society have just announced their intention to seek a judicial review.

The High Court has just ruled that Raab acted irrationally in refusing to implement the "minimum necessary" 15% increase for defence solicitors that was recommended by the Bellamy report. That doesn't mean that the increase will get implemented, but it does put some pressure on Alex Chalk.

Full judgement here. Official press summary here.

[snoozeofreason]

Bumped, because it turns out that underfunding the criminal justice system for more than a decade has consequences if you want it to act as an emergency service in cases of public disorder.

Criminal defence solicitors do not have the capacity or resources to support 24-hour courts, the chair of a practitioner group has told the Ministry of Justice in response to reports that the additional courts protocol could be activated to deal with cases arising from the current wave of riots sweeping the country.

On Sunday, prime minister Keir Starmer declared that those who have participated in the ‘far right thuggery’ would face the full force of the law. ‘The police will be making arrests. Individuals will be held on remand. Charges will follow. And convictions will follow.’

The government signalled over the weekend that overnight courts could be set up to deal with cases arising from the riots.

However, Daniel Bonich, chair of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, has told the Ministry of Justice in an open letter that he is disappointed no one has spoken to practitioner groups representing criminal law practitioners.

Noting that the additional courts protocol was activated for the London riots in 2011, Bonich said: ‘[This] is not 2011. Since 2011 more than a third of criminal legal aid solicitors have left the profession and a third of firms have closed. Legal aid rates have fallen by more than 30% in real terms at a time when the cost of living, and the costs of running a business have ballooned.

‘Firms have neither the capacity nor the resources to help staff 24-hour court sessions, even in the short term. They cannot afford to operate in shift patterns which means solicitors to work 24 hours, on top of their 24-hour police station duty which, in the case of employees, would cause contract and employment law issues as well as seriously impacting on family life and their mental health wellbeing.

‘Our members are an ageing profession, many already working every hour under the sun. We cannot take any more. Our members are not willing or able to prop up a failing system. We will be making it clear to our members that they should think carefully before putting themselves and their firms at further risk by stepping into the breach once more.’

Bonich stressed that solicitors were not trying to be obstructive.

‘But we would point out that if law and order, the justice system, and those working in it are as essential as must now be plainly obvious to all, then it is time it is treated with the respect that it deserves and not as some poor relative of the other public services. There is no capacity in the system because of the neglect going back decades.

We are more than happy to meet to discuss a way forward, but those discussions must result in urgent action. They must include discussions on the immediate delivery of the rest of the criminal legal aid recommendations, urgent investment to tackle the impact of inflation, and annual reviews of rates to put legal aid on a sustainable footing.’

The Criminal Bar Association has also opposed 24-hour courts.

CBA chair Tana Adkin KC said: ‘The working day does not begin and end with the court hearing. Reading, researching, preparing written work all takes place outside court, much of it unremunerated. Time is needed to resolve admissibility issues and reduce large amounts of material to summaries and schedules in order to reduce court sitting time and cost.

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