Victims of crime face long delays before cases are heard because of a shortage of defence lawyers.
Scotland’s court service is increasing the number of judges, sheriffs and hearings to try to chip away at the backlog caused by the Covid-19 lockdown.
The government has put £50 million into the justice system to hire hundreds more fiscals, and to staff 16 new courts and remote jury centres from next month. However, no money is being made available to increase the number of defence lawyers.
Experts say the lack of solicitors will mean further delays for victims of crime, particularly in rape and sexual assault cases.
Criminal defence firms said that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service had offered high salaries to try to lure hundreds of new depute fiscals to work for the prosecution.
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Private law practices said they could only afford to pay trainees up to £25,000 a year while the prosecution service has been hiring people on salaries of more than £42,000.
Darryl Lovie, a committee member of the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association and a partner at Keegan Smith, a criminal defence practice in West Lothian, said the defence profession was struggling to survive. “We are effectively training new lawyers for the crown as they regularly cross the divide,” he said.
Debbie Wilson, convener of the Law Society of Scotland criminal law committee, said more prosecutions would add to pressure on defence solicitors. “To ensure access to justice for all there must be a healthy criminal bar sustainable over the long term,” she said.
A fund providing up to £1 million to support 40 new legal aid trainees which opened for applications on June 3 was oversubscribed within 24 hours.
Additional sheriffs have been appointed to deal with the sheriff court backlog and eight sheriffs have been made judges to help run more trials. Court chiefs predict that the backlog of nearly 50,000 trials will not be cleared until 2025.
