By Patrick Gower
Criminal lawyers are threatening to bring the court system to a halt with industrial action.
They are angry at changes the Government is making to the legal aid system.
But the resistance campaign is controversial with some lawyers for and others against.
The Government has already sat in judgment and ruled it is not backing down.
The wheels of justice turn slowly at the Auckland District Court at the best of times.
But the brakes would really go on, if lawyers like John Anderson go through with a threat of industrial action.
“If lawyers didn't work, the whole system would grind to a halt,” he says.
Reforms to the legal aid system have the Criminal Bar Association, which Mr Anderson is part of, considering rebelling by:
- Withdrawing their services - essentially stop work or a strike
- Refusing to re-sign contracts which would hold up the reforms
- As well as, work to rule in which they stringently keep contracted times to the minute
“There'd be huge, massive delays... The courts couldn't function at all,” he says.
Criminal lawyers will lose 50 percent of their work to the Public Defence Service when changes come into force from July.
The Government says it is cheaper and will not back away from its plans to trim the Legal Aid Bill.
The Criminal Bar Association, which represents 300 of the country's 1200 criminal lawyers, says the call for action is spreading.
“It's dividing the profession - the Law Society says deliberate disruption would be wrong,” says John Anderson
So with the Government refusing to back down, the onus is now on the lawyers to see if they will stop the justice system they have a statutory duty to uphold - or if it is just an empty threat
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