A continuous all-out strike by criminal barristers is set to bring the justice system grinding to a halt in England and Wales from this week.
Members of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) have been walking out on alternate weeks since June and have voted to begin an uninterrupted strike from 5 September. The strike effectively begins today, however, because of the pattern of week-on, week-off industrial action.
Are the strikes justified?
Barristers working on criminal cases say they been hit by deep cuts to their incomes as a result of government changes to the legal aid system.
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A growing number are quitting the sector, leading to “legal aid deserts”, said The Law Society. And many of those who remain say they can no longer survive on their current salaries.
Although private corporate lawyers are well paid, criminal barristers “are not paid as well as many people assume”, The Guardian said.
The median salary for a criminal barrister in 2019-20 was £79,800, according to an independent review conducted by Sir Christopher Bellamy QC. And barristers with two years of practice or fewer were paid a median of £25,100 before expenses and a net figure of £18,800 after expenses.
Newly qualified criminal barristers “can take home as little as £9,000 once costs, including transport, are factored in”. Some barristers say they are paid less than the minimum wage after all their time working on cases is taken into account.
What is the government offering?
A 15% rise in fees has been offered by the government. But the CBA said the increase, which was the minimum recommended by the criminal legal aid review, was not enough because it does not kick in immediately or apply to existing cases.
Barristers are asking for a 25% increase in the fees they are awarded when defendants cannot otherwise afford a lawyer.
The Ministry of Justice has previously said it had “repeatedly explained” to the CBA that backdating pay would require a “fundamental change” in how fees are paid, adding: “That reform would cost a disproportionate amount of taxpayers’ money and would take longer to implement, meaning barristers would have to wait longer for payment.”
Who is to blame for the strikes?
Labour leader Keir Starmer last week accused the government of doing “absolutely nothing” to resolve industrial disputes as it emerged that Justice Secretary Dominic Raab was on holiday when the CBA voted for its indefinite strike.
Raab is on leave with his family in Surrey until Thursday and has not met CBA representatives since members began their industrial action in April. Junior ministers have met the group regularly, however.
For his part, Raab has accused barristers of “holding justice to ransom”. In an article in the Daily Mail earlier this month, he wrote: “My message to the CBA is simple. We are increasing your pay. Now your actions are only harming victims, increasing the court backlog, and hampering our efforts to make our streets safer. The criminal justice system deserves better.”
But the Victims’ Commissioner for London, Claire Waxman, has blamed Raab’s “inaction” for the ongoing dispute and tweeted “the only ones responsible for holding ‘justice to ransom’ are those who have failed to fund a functioning justice system”.
Waxman added that justice will “grind to a complete standstill” as a result of the strike, with many thousands of victims affected.
What could the long-term impact be?
In an article for The Independent, Jayne Butler, chief executive of Rape Crisis England and Wales, said that despite the fallout, she was sympathetic to the barristers’ demands.
“Many barristers have expressed to me how heavily the impact weighs on them in taking their strike action,” Butler wrote. “But the responsibility for this disaster of justice does not lie with them. They are boldly taking a stand to push for change and to ensure that the victims (and defendants) of the future have a justice system that is functioning and intact and effective.”
Butler’s comments followed a report in The Telegraph that a domestic abuser was spared jail after he claimed he could not find a lawyer to defend him as a result of the strike.
George Waight, who was found guilty at Cheltenham magistrates’ court in July of assaulting his partner and causing actual bodily harm, was given “an alternative sentence” by the judge: a three-year community order, which included 250 hours of unpaid work.
An article in the same paper today described the walkouts as “a blow to victims and defendants desperate to see justice”, but added that thousands of barristers “believe that the future of Britain’s justice system depends on it”.
