'The Hon. Gentleman seems to be the shop steward for what I think is totally unwarranted industrial action…'
This retort from the lord chancellor and justice secretary was meant as an insult but at the time I took it as a compliment, having made continuous representations to numerous ministers and lord chancellors about the dire state of the criminal justice system over the years.
Raab delivered his answer with a cocky grin pulled from the corner of his mouth and a partial wink as he sat back down.
But rather than being the killer point before the court it was more like the advocate pointing out some unused material they discovered that actually assisted their opponent in the case that had, up until then, been missed. Why do I say that? Because I think it was then clear, for all to see, that the government were desperate for this scrap with the criminal bar. Rather than simmering it down and putting solutions in place, Raab was stoking it up. The government needed to be able to blame lawyers for the horrific backlog of criminal cases mounting up in the courts. Backlogs that existed well before the pandemic. Backlogs that the criminal bar and criminal solicitors have been warning about for years.
So those involved in the criminal justice system are not surprised at the Criminal Bar Association’s (CBA) vote in favour of indefinite walkouts from 5 September, following a series of rolling multi-day actions since June. The writing has been on the wall for months and Raab’s comment to me, back in March, was exhibit A.
The narrative of fat-cat lawyers gobbling up more of the pie will inevitably be used to undermine the CBA’s brave stand, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Legal aid rates paid to defence lawyers have barely risen, in absolute, let alone real terms, for decades.
Justice was the hardest-hit government department under the Cameron-Clegg coalition’s austerity, with the Legal Aid, Sentencing, and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) of 2013 launching an all-out assault on access to justice.
The justice system is on its knees, and like many public services, has been held together solely by the goodwill of those who work in it for far too long. And, as in many sectors, after 12 years of Tory rule that goodwill is running out.
The strike will be painful and disruptive. Victims of crime will wait even longer for justice, prolonging their pain and trauma, and defendants will be left in limbo for longer still. The police will be pressured not to charge alleged villains but to release more and more 'under investigation' for months and years.
But this is already happening under the status quo, and it cannot go on.
Legal aid was first introduced as one of (though perhaps among the most forgotten) the major social reforms of the post-war Labour government. They knew, back then, that if the high-minded principles of British justice – the rule of law as a cornerstone of democracy, the notion of innocent until proven guilty – were not worth the parchments they were written on without access to professional legal representation, available to all no matter their ability to pay.
They knew that justice must be blind, like the Old Bailey’s famous statue. If only those with the deepest pockets get justice, that isn’t justice at all.
They knew that a publicly-funded legal aid system was nothing other than essential.
But if the current trajectory continues, the meagre access to justice still guaranteed by the state will be further stripped away. You cannot have 40% of the most junior criminal barristers, the next generation of practitioners, quitting in a single year and expect a functioning, sustainable system.
My party, the Labour party, was founded as the political wing of the trade union movement. The party of working people. So Labour must stand shoulder to shoulder with those taking their own stand, be it at the ports or the courts. Criminal barristers are fighting to defend the most fundamental of public services, and they need our support now more than ever. Solidarity with the criminal bar.
Karl Turner MP is a former shadow solicitor general (2014-2016), shadow AG (2016), shadow minister for legal aid (2020-2021) and a current member of the Justice Select Committee
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