Up to 200 barristers across the South West, who have taken part in protests in three centres against government cuts in legal aid funding, have been “shocked” by the mis-representation of their earnings by the Ministry of Justice.
And they believe the proposals are not only misguided but that they will lead to a two-tier system of criminal justice, as in America, where only those with money can afford the best lawyers.
“Feelings are running extremely high,” Bristol-based Andrew Langdon QC, who is acting as spokesman for Bar members in the South West , told Marlborough News Online.
In an exclusive interview following Monday’s demonstrations across the whole country, he revealed that around 200 barristers took part in what he described as “meetings” in Bristol, Exeter and Winchester to express their views.
The Ministry of Justice claims that Britain has one of the most expensive legal aid systems in the world costing £2 billion a year and that its propose reforms will save £220 million a year from 2018/19.
“There is appalling wastage within the Ministry of Justice, in terms of what goes on in court and in terms of privatised companies not delivering prisoners on time to court,” declared Mr Langdon.
“All that costs the taxpayer an extraordinary amount of money compared with the miserable amount they are trying to take out of the legal aid fund.
“The government has also closed a number of courts which slows down things. All these things obviously inter-connect. The rather ludicrous thing is that the Ministry of Justice is only one part of the equation.
“The Home Office is the other part and when one department tries to attack the way the justice system is resourced is that the bulge, the balloon squeezes into another department.
It is not very joined up, I’m afraid.
“And a lot of these short-term so-called savings end up costing us much more to everybody in the end because, unsurprisingly, if you lose people of quality in the system then the system becomes more inefficient. So there is no saving at all.
“If you want to save money you should concentrate on making sure you have the best people doing the job. That makes everything more efficient.”
He protested that the Ministry has “unequivocally misrepresented” the earnings of barristers by revealing the fees paid to leading barristers and only in the footnotes explaining they were self-employed lawyers with their own overheads and paid VAT on their earnings.
“In fact it is rather shocking that the Ministry has done that,” declared Mr Langdon, also a member of the Criminal Bar Association who defends and prosecutes in gang murders and high level fraud cases.
“It’s a bit like quoting bankers’ income and saying that’s what cashiers are being paid. It’s ludicrous.
“I have made personal protests to my MP and members of government – lots. What is happening is the culmination of eight months’ of hard grind meeting with Ministry of Justice officials, local MPs, anyone who will listen to us.
“And I am afraid they were just not listening.”
That was why local lawyers decided they had an obligation to draw some public attention to what was happening and why he believes there will be no immediate change in government policy.
“We’re not naïve,” said Mr Langdon, who was called to the Bar 27 years ago. “We not expecting the government to announce in the next 24 hours that it has changed its mind.
“It’s going to be looking for some face-saving device. May be the government under-estimated for once how strongly the legal profession felt about it. It may have under-estimated the public reaction to it.
We are hopeful that in time they will come around and start to listen to some of our proposals about how they can save money without cutting the legal aid fund.”
