Dozens of silks have accused the lord chief justice of ‘intimidating’ lawyers with his warning over court walkouts.

Hundreds of placard-bearing lawyers are expected to gather outside the Old Bailey and Crown courts in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and Cardiff on Monday for the first of an escalating number of ‘days of action’ in response to the government’s controversial legal aid reform package. Solicitors have been encouraged to join them on the picket line.

Earlier this week the lord chief issued guidance to judges stating that all cases where there is non-attendance should be referred to the senior presiding judge’s office to consider whether to involve the Bar Standards Board. ‘The question whether a failure to attend amounts to professional misconduct will then be a matter for any disciplinary process,’ the lord chief said.

However, dozens of silks said the lord chief’s guidance ‘is being read by many of us who prosecute and defend as an attempt to intimidate us’ in a letter to The Times today.

They said: ‘We are concerned that the independent office of the lord chief justice risks being seen as doing the job of a partisan enforcer for a government whose degrading of the justice system has been draining it of the very professionals on which it relies: barristers to prosecute, defend and provide judges.

‘Our action is about defending these professionals, and the lord chief justice clearly cares about them, but his warning may have the effect of condemning the courts to a painful asphyxiation rather than providing the oxygen that we all, judges, barristers and those unwillingly caught up in the system, so urgently need.’

The 70 signatories include former Criminal Bar Association chiefs Caroline Goodwin QC, Chris Henley QC and Sally O’Neill QC.

Discussing the legal aid dispute before the House of Lords constitution committee last month, the lord chief urged the government ‘to deal with this problem’, warning that that the numbers of criminal barristers and solicitors would continue to decline at a time when police numbers are going up and there is enormous pressure on police and prosecutors to bring more cases into the criminal courts.

A spokesperson for the judiciary said today: 'The judiciary must uphold the rule of law and ensure the timely and efficient administration of justice and fairness to all parties. The Criminal Bar Association and the Bar Standards Board have similarly warned of the risks of disciplinary action by the Bar Standards Board (as the independent regulator for barristers.) The message from the LCJ to judges emphasised that the judiciary is not a party to the dispute and will make no comment on it.'

 

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