Lawyers in the North East are refusing to pick up last-minute cases in protest at government cuts they say have left our courts in chaos.
On April 11 action by the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) which will see defence lawyers reject "return" cases began, after 94% of the body's members voted to "withdraw their goodwill" in a bid to force the Government to up legal aid fees.
Criminal cases are often returned by barristers unable to cover them as ongoing trials run over or face delays. Ordinarily, their colleagues will agree to cover these, often working long hours at the last minute to get up to speed on the details. But, as of this week, those cases won't be heard.
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Many barristers' chambers within the North East have confirmed they will join the action, which organisers say "will be maintained until Government agrees to a fair settlement of the Criminal Bar’s longstanding concerns about unacceptably low legal aid fees that are driving hundreds of our barristers out of criminal practice".
Among them are lawyers at Newcastle and Teesside-based Trinity Chambers. Caroline Goodwin Q.C, head of the criminal practice group at the chambers, served as CBA chair in 2019/20 and was involved in discussions with the Ministry of Justice over lawyers' concerns.
She told ChronicleLive: "Over a long period of time, the Government has slashed funding in the criminal justice system. The junior bar is poorly paid for the work they do; they slashed the police; they slashed the Crown Prosecution Service; they cut sitting days in courts.
"All those chickens have come home to roost now. We've got a criminal justice system that is cracking at the seams, where it cannot cope with the number of cases in the pipeline waiting to be tried."
These rising pressures, she said, have resulted in a system running on "petrol fumes" and "goodwill", with burned-out lawyers leaving the profession or choosing not to take on distressing cases, like sex offences, due to the mental health impact. Lawyers say this piles more pressure on those who remain, while low rates of pay for legal aid work may mean barristers taking on more work than they can cope with.
Ms Goodwin added: "We are self-employed, we've got to pay for our insurance, our subscriptions, our travel between cases. The reality is it's a hard, hard slog at the bar and a lot of people have to try to increase the number of cases they do to try and make it financially viable.
"No one here is asking for extraordinary favours. What we are asking for is reasonable remuneration for the work that we do."
The backlog in cases, she said, was evident before the pandemic, with the crisis merely "shining a light" on pre-existing issues. It's a problem with is now getting in the way of justice. According to the CBA, 280 trials in the last quarter of 2021 were adjourned due to shortages of barristers, with cases now taking an average of 700 days to complete, leaving victims' lives in limbo.
Meanwhile, after expenses, new specialist criminal barristers earn a median of £12,200, while in just one year between 2020 and 2021, incomes across the profession fell by 23%.
In 2021, an independent review said a cash injection of £135 million a year was “the minimum necessary as the first step in nursing the system of criminal legal aid back to health after years of neglect”. The government agreed to provide this "minimum", with a 15% boost in legal aid fees.
However, this will only apply to new cases from October 2022, with the huge backlog of cases meaning lawyers won't see the extra cash for some time. The CBA has called for an immediate 25% increase in fees, with payments for currently unpaid written work and extra cash to reflect the time taken preparing complex sexual offences cases.
Brian Hegarty, partner at Newcastle-based David Gray LLP, said the action would have a huge impact in the North East. He said: "This is going to be really significant. Barristers return cases amongst themselves an awful lot and the only way the court system can function effectively is by barristers accepting returns.
"The backlog in the courts was immense prior to the pandemic, it was already a significant and growing problem and this is only going to make it worse. It has long been a saying that 'justice delayed is justice denied', and that applies to our courts. They do what they can but they are hamstrung by funding decisions taken by central Government and if they are not going to put the money in the backlog cannot be reduced."
He said extra sitting days which were re-introduced following previous cuts were "too little, too late", and called on ministers to do more than provide the bare minimum recommended by the independent review.
He added: "The whole system is under-funded and this backlog has been created by central Government failing to invest in the criminal justice system. The Government will know that we are a group for whom the public have absolutely no sympathy - we are defending people accused of crimes, some of them vile offences.
"But defence lawyers as part of an effectively-funded justice system are a cornerstone of a democratic society - otherwise, you would have a police state. If you ask people 'should everyone have the right to a fair trial?' they say yes, but the system is now underfunded to the point where that can't happen."
Ministers have insisted the cash on offer should be sufficient to address barristers' concerns and called on them to end the action. Justice Minister James Cartlidge said: “The Crown Court backlog is now falling thanks to our decisive action and the hard work of legal professionals and as a result of our reforms the typical criminal barrister will earn nearly £7,000 extra per year.
“This is a significant pay rise and I encourage the Criminal Bar Association to work with us, rather than pursue unnecessary disruption in the courts which will only serve to delay justice for victims.”
