More solicitors could be granted advocacy rights under plans reportedly being considered by justice secretary Dominic Raab that would undermine the criminal bar’s strike.

Yesterday, in a column for the Daily Mail, Raab accused the Criminal Bar Association – which has voted to commence uninterrupted ‘weeks of action’ from 5 September – of holding justice to ransom.

Today, the Daily Mail reported that the justice secretary is examining ways to let other lawyers appear in the Crown court.

A government source told the Mail: ‘We’re lucky to have a wide range of legal talent in this country. So we are looking to give more solicitors higher rights of audience to broaden the work they can do, increase the number of legal executives, who often come from less privileged backgrounds, and expand the Public Defender Service.’

Approached for comment by the Gazette, the Ministry of Justice declined to comment further.

The government signalled in its response to the Bellamy review that it wanted to widen the scope of legal professionals who can work in the criminal justice system.

The government’s response, published in March, stated: ‘In some cases, taking a legally aided client through this process can be facilitated by several professionals including solicitors and solicitor advocates, legal executives, barristers and paralegals. For some suspects, accused or defendants the involvement of multiple practitioners will be essential to their case but for many a single practitioner can efficiently and effectively support and represent them through the criminal justice system.

‘That is why our proposals on legal aid sit alongside our ambition to remove barriers to CILEX professionals working within the criminal justice system. It is also why we are looking at how best to increase opportunities for solicitors to achieve and exercise higher rights.’

The government also signalled in its March response that it wanted to expand the Public Defender Service on a limited basis to provide additional capacity where there was a risk of, for instance, the criminal legal aid market being ‘disrupted’.

Yesterday, former justice minister James Cartlidge suggested it was time for the government to recruit a ‘Crown Defence Service’, mirroring the Crown Prosecution Service.

Lord Bellamy said in his review that the equivalent of a CPS on the defence side would have ‘major constitutional, practical and cost consequences’.

Bellamy, who has since been appointed a justice minister, added: ‘From a personal point of view, I would have serious reservations about such an option, involving as it does the state directly taking “both sides” of the case, given the strong adversarial tradition of the [criminal justice system], and whether in terms of cost and efficiency the state could do a better job than the private sector. Nonetheless, had I considered the present system to be so fundamentally defective that some kind of nationalisation of the defence should be considered, I would have said so.’

 

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