Intimidation Tactics Won't Affect Striking Lawyers
Today, across the country, barristers in England and Wales from across the Criminal Bar Association went on strike and protested funding outside of courtrooms. As I wrote about in the newsletter last week, this is not something that has come out of nowhere but instead speaks to a fundamental problem with a justice system that has been left to wither on the vine for the past decade.
As with the rail strikes it is likely that this industrial action will not be popular amongst segments of the population because of the disruption that is caused. The Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab, has already launched his own campaign in the press by arguing that the strikes will cause delays to justice. This ignores the fact that there are already huge backlogs in cases thanks to severe underfunding from the government but, then again, wilful ignorance is not a new feature amongst ministers in the current administration.
However, while battles in the press are not a new feature for industrial action, barristers are facing a unique problem in the form of threats from the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett. Last week he said that in cases of non-attendance, a reference should be made to the senior presiding judge who could then decide whether to pass the matter on the Bar Standards Board. The Board (that regulates the conduct of barristers) would then be in a position to decide whether any misconduct had taken place.
The threat of invoking disciplinary action against barristers who are striking after a democratic vote amongst members of the Criminal Bar Association is downright intimidation by the judge and should be called out as such. There is no other profession where striking workers would be threatened in such a way by someone who is not even their employer.
Of course the irony in all of this is that barristers are doing this to preserve the justice system that Burnett presides over. No one wants a fair and efficient justice system more than those involved in it. Indeed the Lord Chief Justice gave evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee last month where he expressed concerns about the dispute and worried about the declining ranks of the criminal bar.
The judiciary ought to, at the very least, remain independent from this dispute between the government and barristers but this intervention effectively places the judiciary as a mouthpiece of the government by implicitly threatening those on strike.
This tactic will not work. The decision to go on strike was not an easy one but now that it has been made, barristers will not be deterred. They are not just fighting for equitable pay for themselves but also for the future of the justice system itself.
This week on the podcast we have a case where a judge made a decision but was then asked to re-consider before the order had been officially sealed by the court. We discuss the circumstances when that should be allowed.
Episode link: http://uklawweekly.com/2022-uksc-16/
Make a difference today,
Marcus