THE country’s criminal justice system is “literally crashing over the cliff” despite the Government’s pay proposals that have averted strikes by barristers, according to the Criminal Bar Association.
Kirsty Brimelow, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, said: “An offer was made by the Government which has been accepted by criminal barristers in a ballot, the ballot was closed. However, there’s still a huge amount of anger there.
“The offer really did hit the demands of the criminal bar, however, a number of barristers still consider that it hasn’t gone far enough, there’s still a lot of trust in government that has to be realised.
“We hope that this is the start of a constructive arrangement. There’s a lot of stress at the bar. It really is ridiculous that barristers have had to take this action, it’s not our job to point out that there’s been chronic underfunding in the criminal justice system.
“It’s also not our job to make clear that the money is needed in order to stop the whole system, just literally crashing over the cliff. And so that anger remains, but we really hope now that there can be a constructive engagement and working forward and proper funding for the criminal justice system. In other words, this is just a start.
Asked what the government needed to do in an interview during Breakfast with Paul Hawkins and Isabel Webster on GB News, she said: “First of all, there is an independent review panel which is being set up. It’s not actually a Pay Review body, but it is similar to a pay review body. It looks at policies, and then looks at the funding of those policies.
“That body has to be one which has teeth, as is set out in the terms of reference, and it has to be shown to have teeth in that whether our recommendations, government really should act on those recommendations going forward and provide the required funds in order for its policies to succeed.
“Otherwise, what’s happening is the government tends to announce criminal justice policies, there’s no funding alongside them, and then ultimately, they fail or certainly they’re failing now, because barristers have now said, we no longer are working for nothing.”
