The Supreme Court has begun to note the consequences of the lawyers’ “strike” in the fight for increased fee rates, the right to bargain and a sustainable legal aid scheme. Criminal cases have begun to pile up in the country’s supreme court and the Supreme Court justice is concerned. Minister of Justice Emilie Enger Mehl believes that it is the sole responsibility of the lawyers and will not contribute to a solution to the conflict. If you are wondering why the lawyers chose to go to such a drastic step as to take action, the answer lies in this arrogance of power quite reasonable demands are met with.
The lawyers’ demands have our full support. The legal aid scheme has for many years been underfunded and neglected to the extent that it violates the basic principle of equality before the law, and the Bar Association rightly believes that the circumstances are not worthy of a state governed by the rule of law. Mehl agreed when she was in opposition. In a speech in the Storting, she criticized the previous government for not doing anything about the under-regulation, and she believed that the right to bargain would ensure real negotiations in line with private practitioners.
Now Mehl has changed opinion on bargaining power without justifying why. Someone must have figured it out. Thus, the lawyers will still be at the mercy of tug-of-war over the budget, where they received a minor upward adjustment last autumn. Mehl seems to think that lawyers should be happy that the new government is more benevolent and less stingy than the previous one. It is a poor consolation when the Minister of Justice does not have an impact.
The state itself will not use underpaid lawyers. The state pays its lawyers a market price as much as possible, and the hours are not tight. The other party’s lawyer must be content with the framework dictated by the state in the budgets, and it is difficult to make a living for even some of our leading defense lawyers. In other words, the government accepts that citizens receive poorer legal aid than the state indulges in.
It may not be It’s easy to sell a lawyer’s strike to the public, but the strike is about ordinary people’s demands for proper legal aid. A Minister of Justice from Sp should not least be concerned that people all over the country have equal access to help, and a red-green government should be concerned about a system that contributes to class justice and increased differences in this country. Mehl has to work harder to find a solution.
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