News

No to self-financing courts 

Making the justice system self-financing is a “major issue of policy” which  “dangerously mistakes the nature of the system and its  constitutional function”, the senior judiciary has warned. Its response to the Government’s consultation on court fee reform  challenged the principle of civil court users funding the family court deficit and criticised the Ministry’s impact assessment, which was separately ‘redrafted’ by the Regulatory Policy Committee. 

Placements reach north High achievers from disadvantaged backgrounds in Leeds and Manchester were the first to participate in the new Bar Placement Weeks, run this February in partnership with the Sutton Trust’s Pathways to Law programme at the Universities of Manchester and Leeds. 

“Victims’ rights arrived late in the day” and have not been balanced or even considered when constructing the legal system, Sir Keir Starmer QC, former Director for Public Prosecutions, stated in a lecture at the Working Men’s College on 4 February.  

The speech emphasised the points raised by him in a Guardian column the day before where he suggested retiring the phrase “criminal justice system” and replace it with “a criminal justice system fit for victims”. 

Three QCs have so far joined the Public Defender Service (PDS) amid claims that the Ministry of Justice is attempting to replace the independent Bar. Gregory Bull QC, former leader of the Wales and Chester Circuit and Alun Jenkins QC, former head of chambers at Queen Square, Bristol, join David Aubrey QC who in March takes up his appointment as Head of Advocacy to “lead the development of the PDS’s existing team of advocates”.  

Salaries have been offered by the PDS in the range of £46,036 to £125,000 gross, including pension rights and paid leave. The recruitment drive aims to “enhance its advocacy capability, including its ability to conduct VHCCs”. 

The criminal Bar should be reduced to “a size where it can thrive”, allowing for competition and for each successful advocate to have enough work to provide an acceptable living, the Attorney General has counselled.  

Speaking at the launch of the new Bar Standards Board Handbook in January, Dominic Grieve QC MP said that “the crux of the matter for Advocates (QASA) nor legal aid reform, but “the increasing number of criminal advocates, at a time when the volume of cases available to them is falling”. 

A strike which would bring the criminal justice system to a standstill and a boycott of the Magna Carta celebrations in 2015 were the most popular suggestions for the way forward at the national meeting of the Bar held in Lincoln’s Inn Great Hall on 8 February to voice the Bar’s opposition to further legal aid cuts.  

Going even further, one QC wondered from the floor whether there should be a private prosecution of the Lord Chancellor for fraud for misrepresenting the position of the criminal Bar: “Get him in front of a jury and send him down.” 

Permission to appeal the result of the judicial review of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) has been refused by the High Court.   

Rejecting the appeal, the Order said that there was no reasonable prospect of successfully challenging the judicial review, nor was there any other compelling reason for granting permission to appeal. 

A half-day of “non-attendance” on the first day of term has been announced by the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) as a “reasonable and proportionate response to the conduct of the Ministry of Justice” and a “glimpse of the future if our profession is dismantled into non-existence”.  

Statutory instruments introducing the legal aid pay cuts have been roundly criticised by the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.  

A regulatory anomaly which meant that fees for very high cost cases (VHCCs) would, for the first time, have been subject to the deeming provision in the cab rank rule, has been corrected by the Bar Standards Board (BSB).