Now barristers vote to strike in bid for 25% rise
BARRISTERS have voted to strike from next week in a row over pay which will paralyse crown courts and delay trials.
The Criminal Bar Association, which represents barristers in England and Wales, yesterday announced weeks of walkouts starting from next Monday which could disrupt 8,000 new cases a month.
The strike is intended to last for at least four weeks, beginning on June 27 and 28, and increasing by one day each week until a five-day strike from July 18.
It means all cases which require barristers will have to be paused or postponed, including trials, sentencings, and pre-trial hearings. The action is likely to affect nearly all cases at crown courts across the UK in that time. Victims of crime are already facing lengthy delays after the pandemic forced the closure of courts, with the backlog of cases hitting 58,271 in
April this year. The strike raises the prospect that some cases paused mid-way through trial could collapse if jurors are unable to sit longer. Yesterday there were reports of judges already delaying cases in anticipation of the crippling industrial action.
It will be only the second strike in the Criminal Bar Association’s history and the first since 2014 when barristers and solicitors staged a mass walkout over plans to slash legal aid fees by up to 30 per cent.
Barristers are expected to strike on picket lines outside famous courts, including the Old Bailey in London. The CBA said around 81 per cent of 2,055 members supported industrial action over rates of legal aid pay.
Lawyers are demanding a minimum 25 per cent increase, saying there has been average decrease in earnings of 28 per cent since 2006.
The association already took
smaller-scale industrial action in April by refusing to cover over-running cases for colleagues.
Jo Sidhu QC and Kirsty Brimelow QC, of the CBA, said the strike vote ‘reflects a recognition amongst criminal barristers...that what is at stake is the survival of a profession of specialist criminal advocates and of the criminal justice system which depends so critically upon their labour’.
Justice Minister James Cartlidge said the Government had already offered a 15 per cent rise, which would boost a typical criminal barrister’s pay by around £7,000 per year.
He added: ‘We encourage the Criminal Bar Association to work with us, rather than escalate to unnecessary strike action, as it will only serve to harm victims as they are forced to wait longer for justice.’