Legal aid, judicial review and the rise of McKenzie friends in courtrooms around the country are to be key priorities for incoming Bar Council chair, Alistair MacDonald QC.
Giving his inaugural speech this week, MacDonald, a criminal barrister in Leeds, paid tribute to the “excellent work” by his predecessors Maura McGowan QC and Nicholas Lavender QC in preventing further cuts to legal aid, and pledged to continue the fight. He said he would focus on the continuing impact of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO), which introduced legal aid cuts in April 2013.
“Our pre-eminence has been hard won,” he said.
“It can so easily be lost. I am really concerned that the changes brought about by LASPO both in terms of access to justice and also to restrictions on the ability of the citizen to challenge, by judicial review, the rectitude of government decision, will have far-reaching consequences on the reputation of the justice system of England and Wales.”
While barristers are pragmatic about the need to make savings, there was “a growing recognition that rock bottom has been reached”, he said.
“The Bar has endured successive fee cuts, and we have done our bit.”
MacDonald, who takes up his post on 1 January 2015, is co-head of New Park Court Chambers, and a former leader of the North-Eastern Circuit.
Outgoing Bar chair, Nicholas Lavender QC, will return to his commercial law practice at Serle Court.
