The government has announced that it will abolish committals for
either way cases next year. The new process will be rolled out
gradually across the country from April, and is expected to be
fully implemented within a year. The announcement will have no
impact on our judicial review.
Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson commented:
'The Law Society instituted its judicial review because it is
wholly unreasonable for the government to expect defence lawyers to
do work and not get paid a penny for it. I wonder if the Ministry
of Justice would ask prison officers or any other employee or
contractor under their ambit to undertake unpaid work? This
announcement does not change that.
'Had the government taken the rational approach of abolishing
committals as a way of removing the need for the work, and thus the
need to pay a fee, we would not have had to take this step. Now
firms will have to adapt to yet another significant change to the
way they work, when the Ministry could have implemented these
inextricably linked steps together.'