The demonstrators are protesting the £215m legal aid cut and hope to make magistrates and crown courts shut down.  Criminal barristers made peace with justice secretary Chris Grayling last week, but solicitors are still unhappy with the new legal aid policies.  Some barristers are also dissatisfied.  Henry Baxland QC said: “The Criminal Bar Association ignored calls by many of its members for support for the solicitors’ and probation officers’ days of action.”

Unwelcome reforms

Grayling’s new budget will affect probation officers as well. Ian Lawrence, the general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said; “The government plan to outsource 70 per cent of the probation service is untried and untested…These reforms are ideologically driven and being pushed by a political timetable.”  The Ministry of Justice plans to go ahead with its new budget.  Source: The Guardian