The podcast I did with Charon QC for the College of Law series is now up and can be found here. I hope it helps.
Podcast
October 26, 2009 · 1 Comment
Categories: Uncategorized
The podcast I did with Charon QC for the College of Law series is now up and can be found here. I hope it helps.
Categories: Uncategorized
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Whilst the Government permits an independent bar to exist we should, I believe, celebrate. The consultancy element of the profession means that Barristers are objective and impartial and gives any solicitor access to expertise. I personally also feel more comfortable with a profession that both prosecutes and defends in criminal cases and I believe that every barrister should have (and take) the opportunity to do so.
Current policy means that within 5 years, those doing government-funded work full-time will be earning about 33% as much as those succeeding in privately paying work. The obvious risk is that criminal and family work will no longer attract the best of the profession. This should be a concern, given that it is precisely those areas which have most impact on the general public.
It is hard to credit that the civil-servants who have designed this policy (and let no one kid you that this is a political programme) have no idea what they are doing. The conclusion must therefore be that it is deliberate. We are living through an experiment, the result of which could be the dismantling of a genuinely fine system of state-aided justice and its replacement by something second-rate.
No political party can be bothered to make this an issue. They find it easier to go on about lawyers' earnings. A lot of us have done very well, but so what? Regular 80 hour weeks in which the hours are completely unpredictable and anti-social are the price: for which the State gets dedicated work and a sense of vocation - all for about 1 millionth of the cost of a missile system which doesn't work. Innocent people being locked up, guilty ones walking away and unjust solutions to the family crisis that bedevils this country, are the stakes.
To be fanciful for a moment; if the taxpayer paid all 4,000 practising criminal barristers an additional £100,000 a year to prevent that happening, it would cost this country £400m per annum. Please note that the Ministry of Justice has an annual budget of £8.8 billion. It might just be possible for the civil service to find a saving of somewhere in the region of 0.15% and pay the Bar what it is worth. Don't hold your breath.
I am angry, because genuine concern is dismissed as special pleading. In 20 years time I will be saying 'I told you so' and the fools who devised current policy will be clutching their unearned honours and avoiding responsibility in retirement as they did in their working lives.
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1 response so far ↓
Brian // October 27, 2009 at 1:25 am |
Very balanced. Enjoyed it.