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Barristers should soon be free to give their personal opinions on cases when the rule restricting them to voicing only clients’ views is finally lifted – four years after the change was first mooted. Their regulator said lifting the same ban on solicitors had not caused a problem.

Three barristers have so far said they will appeal against disciplinary decisions affected by the failure of the Council of the Inns of Court to administer the Bar’s tribunal system properly, with the Bar Standards Board not resisting two of them, it has emerged.

The Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) will start in September, nine months later than planned, it was announced yesterday. The revised timetable was released just hours before heads of chambers met to discuss their response to QASA.

The Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates is illogical in its treatment of QCs and does not serve the public interest by allowing solicitors to act as plea-only advocates, the chairman of the Bar Council has argued. The claims come as the bodies representing criminal law solicitors and barristers united in calling for a halt to the scheme.

The Bar has clashed with academics calling for an end to the cab-rank rule over whether the problem of finding lawyers to represent the accused in the recent Delhi rape and murder case is proof of the rule’s continuing value.