Criminal lawyers plan full day protest

Criminal lawyers are planning to stage a second protest against the government's legal aid cuts - only this one would last all day instead of just a morning.

Bill Waddington, chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said the CLSA, the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association and the Criminal Bar Association were working together on another protest.

Waddington said the second protest would be "very similar" to the first, at the beginning of this month, which attracted widespread publicity.

"We can't wait until the government's response is out to organise something," Waddington said.

"If we lay some plans now, before publication, we can firm up on them or cancel them if the government gives us everything we want, which is highly unlikely."

Waddington said the CLSA was also considering whether solicitors should introduce a 'work to rule' against the CPS. Liverpool solicitors backed the action, which would require the CPS to meet its obligations under the criminal procedure rules, at a meeting during the first day of action.

"We would formulate some form of national protocol which would vary from region to region," Waddington said. "Some of the regions may not want to adopt everything.

He suggested that a work to rule might take other forms, such as refusal to return to court later in the day for a postponed hearing or refusing to provide a copy of the defendant's record for the prosecution.

"It's not pretty, but these are the things we do at the moment in order to plug holes in the system."

Nigel Lithman QC, chairman of the Criminal Bar Assocation, said on the CBA website today: "Our message has been sent - loud and clear. We do not want to interrupt the system - but to show that to work efficiently it needs the continued survival of a strong and independent criminal bar."

Lithman said the public understood that if, on average, barristers were earning £100,000 per annum, they would not be protesting.

"Nor would so many have taken the risk of potentially being in breach of their own professional rules to do so," he said.

"They have heard the uncorroborated assertion that we are the most expensive legal aid system in the world just once too often.

Lithman added that "the need for assurance to colleagues that they would not be disciplined nor face DPP censure in some way, has as far as I am aware, proven unnecessary."