Criminal solicitors warn minister on prospect of escalation in legal aid dispute

Solicitors engaged in criminal cases in Northern Ireland have warned the Justice Minister of the prospect of a significant escalation in their dispute over legal aid fees.

The Solicitors Criminal Bar Association (SCBA) has written to Naomi Long cautioning of a “crisis” in the profession due to a failure to increase rates in line with inflation over decades.

The letter, seen by the PA news agency, said without urgent action to increase fees the legal aid system will become “fundamentally irreparable”.

Without a rates increase, the representative body said it will advise and recommend to its members to take “immediate action without delay”.

While the association does not specify what action, it is understood options include the withdrawal of services by solicitors involved in legal aid-funded defence work.

The move comes after criminal solicitors and barristers staged a one-day walkout last month over the legal aid dispute.

The SCBA says criminal defence solicitors work for lower rates than in 1992, when inflation is factored in.

The association says rates are 167% short of where they should be.

Without an increase, the association warned that the legal aid system would be in danger of “complete collapse”.

The letter to the minister, sent on Friday, said: “Absent such restoration, we have no alternative but to immediately inform our members that enough is enough, and action will be required in line with our professional and ethical obligations to the criminal justice system, to victims and to our clients.”

Pearse MacDermott from the SCBA told PA: “The pressures on the criminal justice sector have now become unsustainable.

“Law firms cannot recruit lawyers, and a lack of lawyers results in a delay in the processes. Whilst the process continues to be stretched and delayed, so does the justice that it is to deliver.

“Our members can’t continue to hold together a system that the department refuses to fund properly.

“Without access to properly funded defence services, we run an increasing risk of miscarriages of justice. Inevitably victims of crime and defendants alike will wait increasingly long periods in the hope that justice might come some day.

“All we are asking for initially is a restoration of rates to what we were paid 30 years ago adjusted for inflation. Without it, the system will collapse.”

On Sunday, a Department of Justice spokeswoman said Ms Long would make a statement in the Assembly on Monday on issues related to legal aid fees.

The spokeswoman said: “The department engages with the representatives of the Bar and Law Society regularly and has given an undertaking to engage further following the minister’s statement in the Assembly tomorrow during which she will lay out her road map for enabling access to justice reform programme, including legal aid fees.”