Criminal cases face further disruption after solicitors extend withdrawal of services

Criminal cases face further disruption after more than 200 defence solicitors decided to extend their withdrawal of services into August over a new criminal legal aid payment model for the District Courts.There are regular emergency and special sittings of the District Courts during the August vacation as well as some vacation sittings in the Circuit and Central Criminal Courts.A meeting in Dublin on Friday, in which more than 200 solicitors countrywide participated, decided unanimously to continue the withdrawal action that began in June and escalated after the new payment scheme came into effect on July 1st.The solicitors overwhelmingly rejected amended proposals from Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan, aimed at ending the dispute. READ MORETheir representative body, the Law Society, is now expected to write to O’Callaghan with counterproposals that the solicitors say are necessary to bridge the gap between the sides. O’Callaghan’s amendments were set out in a letter to the society on Tuesday after he and officials from his department met the previous day with representatives of solicitors and of the society. Under the amendments, core elements of the new payment model would remain in place, including a single flat fee of €520 per client, based on an average of five appearances, irrespective of the number of separate prosecutions before the court. That replaced the previous system of about €239 for the first appearance and €60 for each subsequent appearance.Defence solicitors want the new fee structure to reflect the number of separate and distinct prosecutions involving an accused person and the work and court appearances required of solicitors in preparing for those. They say much of their work involves accused people with addiction and mental health problems who routinely face multiple separate prosecutions at a single separate sitting. They welcomed O’Callaghan’s proposal to front-load payment of two-thirds of the €520 fee at the outset of a case, with the final one-third paid at the end, or after 12 months since the case began, whichever is sooner. The solicitors are sceptical about the department’s proposal to review, after six months, operation of the new scheme in the Children’s Court and for cases where more than 20 appearances are required. They say they want a clear commitment that they will be adequately paid for cases involving multiple appearances.The withdrawal action has led to the adjournment of thousands of criminal cases, affecting accused people, witnesses, victims, prosecuting gardaí and adding to existing delays and backlogs in the courts. Solicitors participating in the withdrawal will continue to act for clients remanded in custody before July 1st but will not act in other cases since July 1st, including cases involving the execution of bench warrants.The Minister has separately made interim arrangements in response to this week’s significant High Court decision that 11 people unrepresented by solicitors who were refused bail by the District Court suffered a “fundamental denial of justice” and were entitled to immediate release. In order to eliminate any perceived or actual risk of an unfair bail hearing, the Minister said his department is compiling a list of solicitors who are members of the criminal legal aid panel and providing services under the scheme, including District Court bail hearings.