By Lennon Airey (Politics Correspondent)
Edited by Mark Etkind (Politics Editor)
Imagine you have a child, a child whom you have raised to have a bright and prosperous future. They are currently at university, studying and working their hardest to deliver themselves a successful career. Due to various reasons your child might well be the first in your family to attend a top university. But suddenly, your world is thrown into chaos. You receive a phone call from your child, distraught. They have been arrested on suspicion of committing a crime, which they wholly deny. You believe in your child’s innocence, so you seek to hire a solicitor, and later down the line a barrister. Your income isn’t low enough for Legal Aid provided by the government, meaning the process of defending your child will cost you thousands of pounds. As a result, you are left with a dilemma: either defend your child and fight for their bright future or leave them at the mercy of a broken justice system. Unfortunately, due to Legal Aid only being available to 30% of the country, this dilemma is one that many families who are unable to afford justice face. This too common dilemma, alongside incredibly low earnings, is exactly the reason why criminal barristers in the United Kingdom are shaking the world of law and striking indefinitely until justice can be delivered equally to everybody in the UK, a concept which has existed since 1215 in the Magna Carta.
From the 5th of September, criminal barristers across the UK will stage a walkout - the largest in the history of the Criminal Bar Association in pursuit to solve two problems that hang over the profession today: low earnings, especially at the junior end of the profession, and the significant lack of work due to the decrease of state funded Legal Aid. Legal Aid. Introduced by Labour PM Clement Attlee’s government in 1949, Legal Aid is a budget used to pay for legal advice for anyone arrested and charged who does not have the means to pay for it themselves. It is also used by some claimants to fight civil cases. Reducing the scope of people eligible for this has a ripple effect; fewer families eligible for Legal Aid results in fewer families that can afford fair representation. This leads to less work for criminal barristers, most of whom work predominantly for cases funded by Legal Aid through legally aided cases thus resulting in more innocent people being convicted of crimes that they didn’t commit as they are simply unable to afford a defence and more victims not being given the outcome that they deserve. The effect of this on the justice system is large and it appears to be costing the UK one of the assets which has put it ahead of so many other countries throughout history: justice. Justice in the UK has since 1215 meant that no matter where in the country you come from and how much money you have, the quality of defence representation that you receive will be equal to that of the opposition. This core value of equal standards of representation between prosecution and defence meant that for years victims and defendants had an equal opportunity of justice, with the jury free to decide the outcome, under the guidance of a judge.
This core value, however, is not as relevant as it once was. With earnings at the junior end of the criminal Bar being so low - the median income for a junior criminal barrister with up to 3 years of experience is £12,200 pre-tax (Source: The Criminal Bar Association) which is before a 25% deduction to pay for chambers rent. The Criminal Bar Association said 22 per cent of junior criminal barristers have left since 2016 and that specialist chambers had reduced their tenancies by a third. An example of this is Curtis Dean Myrie, from Wolverhampton, who said the rising cost of living meant he could not afford to live independently. Mr Myrie said with junior barristers earning about £12,500 a year, it makes it "very hard to make ends meet". Mr Myrie addressed some public misconceptions with the life of barristers: "The public just think that barristers are rich, they earn lots of money and that they can't possibly be struggling in the current living crisis". This public perception, whilst once correct, today couldn’t be further from the truth. So with 25% of junior criminal barristers leaving the profession – the task of reducing the backlog of 58,000 Crown Court cases (due to Covid 19) looks even more challenging More defendants are remanded in custody for longer, awaiting their trial and just as many victims must live with the looming thought of justice, unable to go about their day-to-day lives.
Many criminal barristers have blamed changes introduced to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 under the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government for the current situation. Then Justice Secretary Chris Grayling is often depicted as being the perpetrator of this attack on Legal Aid. The current Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor Dominic Raab has offered a 15% fee increase for all legally aided cases, yet the strike plans to continue until the offer reaches 25%. The chair of the Bar Association, Amanda Pinto QC recently stated, “The spending review (on the fees available in legal aid cases) is the government’s chance to protect the rights of the British public and restore confidence in law and order in this country. For too long, there has been a dismal failure to invest in the Ministry of Justice budget, and many barristers were left unsupported by the government, struggling to get by, as courts closed during the pandemic and their work dried up. The justice sector is now in a dire state: outrageously long delays to people’s cases and shockingly low fees for legal professionals are undermining the government’s commitment to law and order.” This shows the discontent and resentment towards the government from the very top of the profession of law. Government cuts to the Legal Aid system have not only reduced the scope of people eligible for defence representation but have also reduced the fees available to junior criminal barristers who work on only Legal Aid cases. The enormous effect these decisions will continue to have on the Justice System is undisputed as many defendants will go without representation at all.
The core concept on which the British and many other justice systems are built on is ‘innocent until proven guilty’. With fewer people being eligible for representation, the phrase seems to now have been amended to, ‘guilty unless you can pay your lawyer’. The simple fact of the matter is that the expense of paying for a lawyer, if you are not eligible for Legal Aid, is far too expensive to realistically afford for the average Brit. Hence, for many families, there is now a price on Justice. It is time as the profession has shown to stand up for one of the, most valuable assets this country has, justice. Because it’s all well and good having a broken justice system with a shortage of lawyers until, that is, it affects you…
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