Felix | High noon in the criminal courts

High Summer; High Noon; the battle lines are drawn, the weather hits the heights, reports of buses carrying adverts for Stobart Law are heard. Now everyone seems joined in the fray - the Bar, with its notoriously indolent and disorganised individual membership, has managed to rouse itself to attend meetings, sign petitions, write letters; the circuit judges have been moved to express their concerns publicly; the Bar Standards Board has spoken out; the circuits are as one. Solicitors and barristers for the first time ever regard each other as brothers and sisters in arms. Even retired judges are out and about. Meanwhile the government says there is no problem.

The saddest thing about the whole debate is the fact that the recognition for the need to save money is clearly and undisputedly established. This is ignored by those who support the government line, and the very sensible and practical proposals that have been made and offered to match the savings sought by other administrative means have been ignored.

All about choice

We are not dinosaurs seeking to defend restrictive practices. In fact legal services is about the most competitive profession going, precisely because of choice - if you are no good then you don't get the work. Governments normally love choice! All this stuff about markets in healthcare, about the money following the patient, about competitiveness in schools for example - surely if all of that is a good thing then why isn't an independent Bar and legal system?

And then on the other hand, if ever there was a demonstration about how difficult the job is sometimes, how specialised it can be and how crucial the need is for sensitivity and professionalism in the conduct of cases is concerned, we have the outcry over a recent trial in Stafford concerning allegations of prolonged cross-examination and other matters in a historic sex case, and not so long ago there were concerns about the Milly Dowler case. In response to these sorts of issues being aired - whether they have any merit or not, the response is for better training, reforms to the system and so on. Implicit in such suggestions is the sense that cases like this are notoriously difficult to defend as well as prosecute, and therefore maybe it would be better to retain skilled people to do it - er, which is exactly what the Bar provides, and a large corporate entity that does not exercise or allow for choice will not.

Insight into the fraught world of sexual and abusive crime was provided compellingly by a recent television programme on the work of the sexual crime forensic and counselling service offered '¨in Manchester.

Very bravely, one woman allowed the cameras to follow her from the aftermath of her complaint, through the run up to the trial and the trial itself. Along the way we met the doctors, lawyers, counsellors and other team members whose daily delight is a long list of numbered cases that allege abuse, on women, men and children. We saw the victim watching her DVD evidence and witnessed her lacerating distress. We met a girl who had been raped in return for a favour borne from her lifestyle as a drug user, now rehabilitated, the perpetrator convicted, undergoing counselling to put her life back together. This is the human side and the bread and butter of what we do. We do not crunch numbers or debt reconstruct or prioritise logistics, we do not run advertising campaigns, build things, project manage and so on. There is not room for doing the same thing on a lesser scale - we could have a two-lane or three-way motorway, we could decide to put up with the signalling, or have one less aircraft carrier. There are lots of thing that we can do cheaply, even if ideally we could do them better for more money. Nobody is saying that the criminal justice system needs more money; we are saying that if you cut it too far, then we can't do it at all to any meaningful degree. Nobody would counternance cutting so far that the road surface cracks, the power station fails or the soldiers can't go into battle because they would have to swim to get to the right place in the first place.

Special and fair

So when we embark on a trial concerning sexual allegations say, we have the whole brave, hurting human side to deal with. Defending, we have the ghastly possibility that the accused is innocent - facing eight years in custody if the jury gets it wrong? Prosecuting, there is not only the appalling cost of an honest person being disbelieved, but that a predatory sexual criminal may be at large to commit such crimes again.

Well, we shall see what happens. It would be nice to think that the positive proposals put forward to save money could be adopted. It would be nice to think that there will be a realisation that what we have in this country is something special and fair. If only we could be confident that nobody really wants to see the end of the best way we can have to resolve and deal with the terrible issues that arise from the consequences of being human.