Members of Cornwall Street Barristers Criminal Team support the Criminal Bar Association’s stance and are refusing defence cases with a Legal Aid certificate dated from 1st April 2018.

As a Criminal Team dedicated to defence practice, we take this action reluctantly. We endorse the following message from the Criminal Bar Association:

“This is far wider than any scheme relating to fees. The new AGFS was the final straw that exposed the chronic impoverishment of a once great system. The structure of the scheme is rational and sets right iniquities we should never have suffered. With sufficient investment and amendment in light of the Bar’s concerns the scheme could work. This will not of course fix the wider systemic problems. This is an issue of principle as well as survival.”