Barristers stage first ‘ strike’ over legal aid budget cuts
CRIMINAL LAWYERS SAY MOVE WILL REDUCE THEIR FEES, LIMIT LEGAL HELP FOR DEFENDANTS
British criminal case lawyers staged an unprecedented walkout yesterday over cuts to the government’s legal aid budget, briefly paralysing the court system. Hundreds of barristers in their black gowns and white wigs flocked outside the Old Bailey, England’s central criminal court, and other courts up and down England and Wales for the half- day walkout — the first of its kind in British history.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative- led government is planning to slash £ 220 million ($ 360 million, Dh1.3 billion) from the annual £ 2 billion legal aid fund — which pays for court representation and other services for those who cannot afford it — by 2018/ 19.
The government says Britain’s legal aid system is the most expensive in the world and is seeking to cut its costs as part of its bid to reduce Britain’s deficit.
But criminal barristers say the cuts will reduce their fees by up to 41 per cent, limiting the help available to defendants who cannot afford to pay for top lawyers.
“When the system is weakened, the eventual result is that the guilty will go unpunished and the innocent are wrongly convicted,” senior barrister Mukul Chawla read in a statement outside the Old Bailey in London.
To accuse the bar as a whole of being fat- cats is equivalent to accusing the acting profession of being overpaid on the basis of the salaries of the likes of Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep.”
B.O ’ Toole| British Barrister
The cuts “will drive the best from our profession,” Chawla added, as he stood surrounded by a thicket of cameramen and white- wigged barristers.
“In the end, and quite quickly I fear, it will have terrible consequences for the most vulnerable — including victims of crime and witnesses.”
The lawyer said there were other ways to cut the cost of justice than “raiding” the legal aid fund.
Barristers insisted the walkout did not amount to a “strike” as they are self- employed, but it forced many judges to change court schedules for the day.
The Ministry of Justice has insisted that legal aid fees to barristers remain “very generous”, arguing that 1,200 top lawyers working full- time on taxpayer- funded criminal work were paid more than £ 100,000 each last year.
But barristers lashed out at attempts to portray them as fat- cats.
“To accuse the bar as a whole of being fat- cats is equivalent to accusing the acting profession of being overpaid on the basis of the salaries of the likes of Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep,” Bartholomew O’Toole, one of those blocking access to the Old Bailey on Monday, told AFP. Nigel Lithman, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, which represents barristers in England and Wales, said the average barrister was paid close to the national average salary of £ 27,000.
British finance minister George Osborne announced major cuts to the country’s welfare spending yesterday as he warned voters that the economic recovery could not be taken for granted.
With an election due in 16 months and the government facing calls to put more money in people’s pockets after years of austerity, Osborne stuck to his message that the only way to return the economy to health is to fix its finances.
“As we start the New Year, I want to warn you about a dangerous new complacency around at the moment,” he said in a speech at a car- parts plant in Birmingham, central England. “You hear some talking as if the hard part of the job is done, and we can go back to the bad old habits.”
The Conservatives continue to lag behind the opposition Labour party in opinion polls. But they score more highly for economic policy and they regularly blame Labour for running up a budget deficit equivalent to 11 per cent of gross domestic product before it lost power in the 2010 election.
Strong recovery
A surprisingly strong recovery in the economy last year turned Britain from a laggard to a leader in growth terms among the world’s big rich nations, though overall output is still below pre- crisis levels.
A survey yesterday showed growth in Britain’s dominant services sector slowed unex- pectedly in December, but confidence rose and the economy still looks likely to have recorded its strongest expansion since 2007 last year. In his speech, Osborne warned that the Eurozone’s troubles and a continuing repair of Britain’s banking system still posed risks to the recovery and he underscored the need for more belt- tightening.
Britain’s welfare system could not be protected from further big cuts which would amount to £ 12 billion ($ 19.7 billion) in each of the first two years of the next parliament, after the election in May 2015, Osborne said. “The truth is there are no easy options here, and if we are to fix our country’s problems, ..., then cutting the welfare bill further is the kind of decision we need to make,” he said.
Austerity drive 12b £ Welfare cuts in the first two years of next parliament