City barrister puts the blame on Johnson’s Government for strike action
A LOCAL barrister has put the blame on the current strikes by he and his colleagues firmly at the door of Justice Secretary Dominic Raab.
Jonathan Dunne, who has regularly practised at Derby Crown Court for a number of years, said the Government “doesn’t care” about the concerns of the legal profession as there “isn’t the political will to do anything about it”.
On Monday, the first day of the strike, Mr Raab expressed his disappointment that barristers have chosen to take action and not appear at courts across England and Wales – including Derby Crown Court – for two days this week in a dispute over pay for legal aid.
In his tweet he said: “It is regrettable that the Criminal Bar Association is striking.
“I encourage them to agree the proposed 15% pay rise which would see a typical barrister earn around £7,000 more a year. Their actions will only delay justice for victims.”
His statement has opened a war of words with the legal profession. Kirsty Brimelow QC, deputy chair of the CBA, which represents barristers in England and Wales, told the BBC’s Today programme on Monday that any increase in pay would not be seen until the end of 2023 “at the earliest” as it would not apply to backlogged cases.
Mr Dunne told the Eddie Mair show on LBC: “What has brought this to a head is the unwillingness of the Government to abide by their own report. They had a very substantial review of the whole criminal legal aid system which reported last November and the chap that authored the report, Sir Christopher Bellamy, basically said to the Government ‘you need to inject £135 million into the system immediately to stop it falling over and that’s where you get the 15% from.
“So the 15% in the news has nothing to do with the current cost of living crisis and inflation. That is the figure their own report said ‘you have got to put in’ and they sat on that report for months and months.
“And at the moment their response is to lay the legislation to bring this about but in such a way that it will only apply to new cases, new legal aid representation orders as they are called, which in turn means we won’t see the benefit of those increases for probably another year or so because you only get paid once the case has finished.
“And that is what has caused the anger, there isn’t the political will to do anything about it, they do not care and when Dominic Raab says ‘it is regrettable there is action’ it is entirely his fault because they don’t care.
“They say they are tough on crime and they’re the party for law and order but honestly if you walked in my shoes you would see a very different picture in the courts?”
Eddie Mair asked him: “What do you see?”
Mr Dunne replied: “Delay.”
Last week the CBA announced a series of strikes over the dispute with barristers striking on Monday and yesterday. Next week they plan to strike Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then Monday to Thursday the following week and the entire week commencing, Monday, July 18. Speaking about the strike to the Derby Telegraph last week, Derby barrister Jeanette Stevenson said: “The CBA maintains that a 15% increase is, of itself, inadequate to secure the long-term viability of the Criminal Bar and will not arrest the exodus of barristers from specialist criminal work.
“That is why the CBA has asked that fees be increased by 25% and a number of other reforms should be implemented as soon as possible. A high inflation rate (now likely to reach 11%) means that a 15% rise in fees will be more than extinguished by the time we receive it.
“Barristers have already suffered an average decrease in our real earnings of 28% since 2006 and during a single year of the pandemic, our average earnings from legal aid collapsed by 23%.
“In that same year, the Ministry of Justice saved £240 million in unspent AGFS (Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme) monies which has never been reinvested to help us. Eighty three per cent of barristers were forced into personal debt with no Government support to mitigate the loss of income.
“We have lost a quarter of our specialist criminal barristers over the last five years with 300 walking away last year alone.”
They say they are the party for law and order but honestly if you walked in my shoes you would see a very different picture.
Jonathan Dunne