UK: More STRIKES now barristers have voted to strike this month

THE UK is looking at more strikes. Now barristers have voted to strike this month over legal aid funding it has been confirmed today, June 20 by The Mail.

The news comes hot on the heels of reports that teachers, binmen and NHS staff have all threatened to walk out.

The Criminal Bar Association (CBA), which represents barristers in England and Wales, said several days of court walkouts will begin next week along with a refusal to take on new cases.

Announced this morning, the industrial action is following a ballot of members but comes at a time when there is a significant amount of backlog across the UK court system.

The Criminal Bar Association representatives, Jo Sidhu QC and Kirsty Brimelow QC said: ‘This extraordinary commitment to the democratic process reflects a recognition amongst criminal barristers at all levels of call and across all Circuits that what is at stake is the survival of a profession of specialist criminal advocates and of the criminal justice system which depends so critically upon their labour.”

“Without immediate action to halt the exodus of criminal barristers from our ranks, the record backlog that has crippled our courts will continue to inflict misery upon victims and defendants alike, and the public will be betrayed.”