MoJ plans to challenge barrister strikes

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To reduce the impact of the barrister strikes, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab plans to challenge barristers’ complete ownership over crown court trials.

According to sources, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is in talks about expanding the types of lawyers permitted to represent clients in criminal trials. This could see more solicitors being given advocacy rights to allow them to cover the gaps left by striking barristers. On top of this, the MoJ is looking to strengthen the UK’s Public Defender Service, which employs barristers on a salaried basis, so that it has a more dependable reserve of stand-in barristers.

“We are looking to give more solicitors higher rights of audience to broaden the work they can do, increases the number of legal executives, who often come from less privileged backgrounds, and expand the Public Defender Service,” a source from the MoJ confirmed.

Speaking on this, a spokesperson for the Criminal Bar Association commented that paying perks to employed barristers would mean that a fully staffed Public Defender Service could cost “north of £1 billion”.

These plans come after criminal barristers voted to escalate to a continuous strike from 5 September 2022 onwards over a dispute about legal aid fees. Commenting on this, Dominic Raab claimed that barristers were “holding justice to ransom” and causing “untold anguish” to victims of crime.

In response, shadow Justice Secretary Steve Reed blamed Raab for using the strikes as a “smokescreen for the delays he and the Conservatives have caused” in criminal courts. Reed also accused Raab of “holding victims and taxpayers to ransom” and called on the government to “get round the table with barristers to solve this impasse".