Not for the first time, criminal barristers in the English and Welsh jurisdiction have signalled their intention to strike.
This will take the form of a refusal to accept any new work paid for by legal aid. As the criminal defence market is overwhelmingly funded by legal aid this is a big deal.
Unlike in Western Australia, Accused persons in England and Wales have enjoyed non means-tested access to legal advice and representation for many years. This has created a single marketplace where lawyers have been progressively underpaid for the last twenty years. Politicians have seen little imperative in equipping alleged criminals with a properly funded pool of defence lawyers.
This is all very well until you or a member of your family is wrongly accused of a crime. Over many years I have represented innumerable persons employed in law enforcement and politicians as well, who have unexpectedly found themselves sitting in the dock in a criminal trial.
In Western Australia, too, notwithstanding record budget surpluses and upward inflationary pressures on prices and interest rates, there has been little investment in the public funding of lawyers for those without means. Legal Aid rates have fallen drastically below the levels of income afforded equivalent professionals and even the State DPP that briefs out the majority of its prosecutions to private and independent lawyers has not increased rates since June 2011!
You don’t always get what you pay for as irrespective of the fee the vast majority of self-respecting criminal defence lawyers will move heaven and earth to afford their client the best possible defence to the charges they face. The problem is that such high minded and impartially motivated people will choose careers elsewhere if things continue as they are; leaving those wrongly charged in our community at the mercy of unjust and undefended allegations.