The Glasgow Bar Association plans to meet tomorrow with other groups across the country planning similar meetings in response to plans which include making low-income suspects pay contributions to legal bills, reports The Scotsman.
Action is expected before the end of the year.

Strike plans

According to the report, the EBA is planning to protest outside Scottish Parliament on 13 November, and will press ahead with strike plans if the government does not amend its Criminal Legal Assistance Bill.
Any action could huge massive disruptions to courts across the country.
The lawyers are angry with the principle of people on low-incomes having to contribute to the legal costs of defending hemsleves against the state, and the Government’s insistence that lawyers themselves should collect the fee instead of the Scottish Legal Aid Board.

No option

Cameron Tait, president of the EBA, said: ‘These changes will see people surviving on the breadline being required to pay the entire cost of their criminal case.
‘Is it the SNP’s vision of an independent Scotland to see those on minimum wage and the most vulnerable in our society having to pay to defend themselves against the state?’
Mr Tat added that the EBA had been given no option but to plan the strike action as their concerns had not been addressed. He said the relationship between lawyers and the Scottish Government was in ‘a poor state’.