Lawyers signal interest in union to fight cuts

A PROPOSED new union for barristers and solicitors working in criminal law has already attracted 115 practitioners, its organiser has said.

Senior counsel Feargal Kavanagh has said the proposed Criminal Law Practitioners’ Union will help those working in free legal aid to fight recent cuts in fees, including a 10 per cent cut imposed by Minister for Justice Alan Shatter on defence practitioners. “We are getting shafted; it is anti-democratic and we are not prepared to tolerate it,” he said.

The 10 per cent cut was introduced on July 13th for practitioners working at District Court level and will be introduced in the higher courts during the next legal term.

It could not be applied to practitioners working in free legal aid as they are funded through the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. An additional cut of 50 per cent has also been applied to adjourned sentence hearings.

As part of the National Recovery Plan 2011-2014, €5 million in savings in the criminal legal aid bill are to be secured by the end of this year and a further €10 million in cuts are to be found next year.

The Minister is expected to publish a legal services Bill at the end of September to help find additional savings and make changes to the legal profession as part of the EU-IMF deal.

Parity of payment between defence and prosecution practitioners working in the free legal aid system was established in 1976, and ensured “that competent and effective representation was provided to all users of the system in an equal manner”, Mr Kavanagh said.

But if prosecution practitioners are paid more by the State than those working in defence, prosecution will necessarily attract a greater number of the most able practitioners. “This break with parity will have disastrous and far-reaching consequences,” Mr Kavanagh warned.

He said criminal law practitioners had taken an effective 33 per cent cut since 2008 and many could not sustain their business. Young barristers were particularly vulnerable.

For travelling to the District Court and meeting the solicitor and accused, and possibly spending all day waiting for the case to be called, young barristers earned €25 for a remand case, €50 if the accused entered a plea and €66 for a hearing, he said.

“The present reality is that you can have as many as 10 young barristers sitting in any District Court around the country, each with a single case to do for the day,” he said.

A growing number of barristers were finding it impossible to pay their law library subscriptions and meet their tax liabilities given the sudden and unexpected drop in their earnings, he said.

“A lower- to middle-ranking civil servant in the Director of Public Prosecutions office has a secure salary coming in each month and a future pension entitlement that a practising barrister would require gross fees of approximately €150,000 a year to achieve,” he said.

More and more barristers were using the Bar Benevolent Fund to meet their most basic needs.

So far, 115 barristers and solicitors had expressed their willingness to get involved with the proposed union, including 15 criminal law senior counsel, he said.

Practitioners accepted that they must share the burden of the present economic difficulties being experienced by the State.

“However, unjust cuts are unjust cuts and to expect criminal law practitioners to carry more than their fair share of the financial cutback burden is manifestly unfair.”

He did not rule out industrial action by members of the proposed union and said if such action took place “the administration of criminal justice would shudder to an immediate stop”.