The lawyers went on strike as they returned

Lawyers have to leave next Monday in a strike over pay that could stop the courts.

Members of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) voted 81.5% to refuse to take on new cases as of Monday (June 27th).

Their strikes will escalate since then, starting with two days off next week on Monday and Tuesday, followed by three days next week, while they will go on strike for the whole week of Monday, July 18th. The strike will then be indefinite.

This will be only the second strike in the history of the criminal bar association and the first since 2014, when lawyers and lawyers staged an unprecedented mass action against the government’s plans to reduce legal aid fees by up to 30 percent.

The strike by the Criminal Bar Association is a protest against the 15% increase in the budget for legal aid, which, in its opinion, is insufficient. They want at least 25 percent.

It has already taken industrial action, refusing to cover cases where, for example, a lawyer may have to hand it over to a colleague due to a collision.

7,000 cases can be stopped

The new action is a significant intensification of the protest, as it can stop up to 7,000 new cases, which go to court every month.

Victims of crime are already facing long delays after the pandemic forced the closure of courts, with the backlog increasing from the low 33,000 before the pandemic to 58,271 in April this year.

In a joint statement, Joe Sidhu QC, chairman, and Kirsty Brimelow, vice president, of the Criminal Bar Association said that 2,055 lawyers had cast their ballots in an “outstanding commitment to the democratic process.”

“This reflects the recognition among criminal lawyers at all levels and in all areas that what is at stake is the survival of the profession of criminal lawyers and the criminal justice system, which depends so critically on their work.” they said.

“Without immediate action to stop the eviction of criminal lawyers from our ranks, the record gaps that have crippled our courts will continue to wreak havoc on both victims and defendants, and the public will be betrayed.