Legal fee hike on current cases could end barristers strike, CBA chair suggests
AN IMMEDIATE 15 per cent hike to legal aid fees for ongoing cases could be enough to end the barristers’ strike, the chair of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) hinted today.
CBA chair Kirsty Brimelow told MPs today that the group would ballot its members on ending the strike if “significant” progress is made
“That would obviously include putting the 15 per cent increase onto the backlogged cases,” Brimelow said.
The UK’s Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has offered to increase legal aid fees by 15 per cent on all new cases, but not current ongoing cases.
The CBA has previously called for an immediate 25 per cent fee hike, applied to all current and future cases, including the more than 59,000 cases currently waiting to be heard in Britain’s Crown Courts.
Brimelow’s comments to MPs came as barristers’ protested outside of the UK’s Supreme Court after starting the first day of their continuous strike action on Monday.
Brimelow told MPs that striking barristers are making “very significant sacrifices.”
Dominic Raab, justice secretary under Boris Johnson, whom Brimelow accused of failing to engage with the CBA, confirmed he will not take up a post Liz Truss’s cabinet and will return to the backbenches.
The MoJ declined to comment.