Minister for Justice to meet Law Society over legal aid row amid ongoing court disruption
A meeting on Wednesday between the Minister for Justice and the Law Society over a controversial criminal legal aid payments model for the District Courts comes amid continuing serious disruption of the work of the criminal courts. Many criminal defence solicitors withdrew their legal aid services in protest after the new one flat-fee payment model was introduced by the Minister, Jim O’Callaghan, on July 1st. The withdrawal has led to the adjournment of thousands of cases across all criminal court divisions with knock-on delays affecting crime victims, accused people, lawyers, judges, gardaí, court staff and those called for jury service. The escalation of the withdrawal last week to include custody cases has aggravated the disruption. The senior judge managing the Central Criminal Court lists has repeatedly warned solicitors they need court permission to cease representing an accused. O’Callaghan told the Oireachtas justice committee last week he had replied positively to…