CBA Chairman’s Report
CBA Chairman’s Report:
Tuesday 4 March 2014
Personal Email: [email protected]
The Chairman Reports that following the CBA executive meeting on 3rd March;
1. That the cuts just announced were unacceptable to the CBA executive, each of whom said they would not accept any brief to which those cuts or any cuts had been applied.
2. That the reports of the Day of Action are that the Bar remains solidly behind the protest on the 7th March.
3. From the 10th March the policy of No Returns is widely supported and would quickly impact on the functioning of the courts. The first review of the policy would be on the 19th March.
4. At the end of the one month period of accepting No Returns, if there is no change in the policy of the MOJ, the criminal bar will consider taking steps escalating in seriousness in response to the government’s intransigence. What is done will always be a matter for individual members of the CBA
5. The demand remains merely that rather than yet more cuts that threaten the survival of the independent criminal bar , there is instead a pay freeze and rates of pay be looked at within or after the proposed Levenson inquiry to which the CBA offers its wholehearted support.
6. This period of escalation will be between the 10th March and the Summer.
7. Nothing the Criminal Bar has done over the last 15 years has brought about this situation. It is merely responding proportionately to the steps that are being taken to destroy the ability of professional people to be able to continue to earn a reasonable living.
I have today received 3 e mails from people no longer able to remain at the criminal bar. Two of them single Mothers. This has to stop.
People in a position to do so have to speak out.
Nigel Lithman QC
Chairman of The Criminal Bar Association