An interesting Court of Appeal case on self representation

An interesting Court of Appeal case on the roles of lawyers appointed to assist defendants who choose to represent themselves.

Ten years ago there were fewer than 10 such cases a year where a lawyer was appointed as an amici (friend of the court) and in 2015/16 there were over 140.

The Court of Appeal decision should reverse this trend. They found:

• We expect that standby counsel appointments should be exceptional. A defendant’s decision to self-represent must be respected and in ordinary cases a fair trial should be possible without standby counsel.
• Rarely if ever should a defendant’s former counsel be appointed amicus
• Former counsel should not normally be appointed standby counsel either.

It seems there has been a pattern where a defendant sacks his counsel just before a trail starts in an attempt to delay the trial. They know the former counsel will probably end up being appointed their standby counsel to help them, so little reason not to.

This ruling should discourage that. If you sack your lawyers and choose to represent yourself, you will be on your own unless you are found to be incompetent of being able to represent yourself. Incompetent is not the same as merely being inferior to a lawyer.