Sir, – Regarding your editorial saying that solicitors must accept reform (July 26th), solicitors are not against change.
For years now, we been calling for reform. Many parts of the criminal justice system are broken, outdated or unfit for purpose. That it has functioned beyond the sum of its parts is a testament to the efforts of those working within it.
So when Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan decided to embark on reform, it seemed reasonable to expect he would go about it in a measured way. Nothing of the sort happened.
Instead, a new “one-size-fits-all” model was unilaterally imposed; one less about reform and more about cost-cutting and optics.
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By reaching for the sledgehammer instead of the scalpel, the Minister alone needlessly brought the criminal justice system crashing to a standstill.
It is easy to characterise this as a simple dispute over pay. But in many ways it’s a battle for the future of the criminal justice system.
Access to representation is a fundamental right. Legal aid is the safety net that guarantees equality before the law to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, ensuring that fairness is not limited to those who can afford it.
Defence solicitors opt to work under the scheme. It is a vocational role. Long hours. High stakes. Always on call. You work with people at their lowest ebb, often in crisis. You take things home with you no matter how hard you try not to.
It is, however, a necessary and important job.
What it is not is a highly lucrative one. Very few enter criminal law because of the money. But the system still has to be fair and sustainable. If carrying out criminal work becomes economically unviable, solicitors will simply leave the area.
More than a month into this crisis, none of us wants to be where we are. I do not believe I had any alternative but to withdraw from the arena. Individual solicitors across the country wrestled with their conscience and arrived at the same conclusion.
I can’t work in a system that ignores the reality of criminal defence work, one cruelly indifferent to the reality that many before the courts have profound difficulties of their own. I won’t work in a system that incentivises express justice at the expense of robust advocacy. And I will not compromise myself.
In the longer term, it is not lawyers who will be hurt by the erosion of criminal legal aid. It will be those on the margins, in the shadows and fallen between the cracks. – Yours, etc,
NIALL WALSH,
Solicitor,
Capel Street,
Dublin 1.
