Legal aid fees will be paid in respect of adjourned trials and the Department of Justice has now clarified arrangements and fee levels.
The Department proposes to pay the defence solicitor brief fee of €1,144 (€3,803 for rape cases and €7,127 for murder cases) in respect of trials and hearings in the Circuit Court, Central Criminal Court or Special Criminal Court which have been listed from 12 March to 10 June and which now have been adjourned due to COVID-I9.
For claims to be processed, they must be accompanied by a completed LA8 form, in accordance with the Procedures Governing the Payment of Criminal Legal Aid Fees.
Parity principle
With regard to adjourned sentences, the Department will abide by the parity principle in line with the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) (Amendment) Regulations, 1978.
The Department will consider fees for sentences that are adjourned in consultation with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The Department's initial focus at present is on the payment of brief fees.
As there was no blanket adjournment of sentences in the Central Criminal Court, the majority of sentence hearings went ahead and the standard fees were paid.
Adjourned
Where a sentence was specifically adjourned, counsel would be paid the standard adjourned sentence fee.
In the Circuit Court, sentences where the accused was in custody went ahead.
Where accused persons were on bail awaiting sentence, the sentence hearings were taken out of the list and given new dates in June and July.
Keeping payments up-to-date
The Law Society has been informed by the Department of Justice than there is no backlog of claims from the Circuit Court and that the Department's Financial Shared Services (FSS) unit is currently working on claims from the District Court received less than two weeks ago.
Historical claims – those not relating to current or recent court business – will take longer to process given the extra burden of reconciliation. Claims are being processed, however, and criminal legal aid payments are being kept as up-to-date as possible.