Are Lawyers 'Essential Workers'?
Everyone knows what to do if you’re ‘pinged’ by the NHS app. Self-isolating for ten days is not fun but it’s necessary for the public good. However there are essential workers across a range of industries, such as the NHS and the police, who are not required to isolate if they are pinged. Those workers still have to test negative for COVID and take daily lateral flow tests but otherwise their work is considered too essential for the normal self-isolation rules to apply.
During this past week questions have been asked about whether lawyers should also be regarded as essential workers after a murder trial collapsed because the defence lawyer got pinged.
A woman who was accused of murdering her boyfriend was due to argue that she acted in self-defence before Icah Peart QC was forced to isolate. By this point the trial was only at day four of the scheduled three weeks but the collapse still cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds despite the barrister being fully vaccinated and testing negative for COVID himself.
The judge in the case queried the situation with the Ministry of Justice but the government confirmed that there was no exemption for those attending court because there was no facility for carrying out PCR tests.
The so-called ‘pingdemic’ is not just affecting the legal sector. Business owners across the country have been critical of the rules for the effect that it has had on staff and customers alike. As Jo Sidhu QC from the Criminal Bar Association put it, without a “sensible approach to stem any over-zealous approach of keeping the healthy double-vaccinated in isolation”, more trials will be jeopardised.
In truth the approach taken by the government is probably the right one. Cases are going down but we are still in a pandemic despite the easing of restrictions. The trial has been delayed now until May 2022 but this is more an indictment of the justice system more than anything else. After all this is a justice system that is failing to invest in courts and has lawyers in a state of revolt over suggestions that court opening hours be extended.
Even if lawyers are not essential workers, the legal system remains at the heart of society and should not be left behind.
This week the podcast critically examines an interesting part of the tax regime: follower notices. The idea is that a taxpayer can challenge HMRC’s view of tax legislation but if they do so and fail then they could be subject to a penalty payment. I attempt to analyse the jurisprudence behind such arrangements.
Episode link: http://uklawweekly.com/2021-uksc-25/
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