Extra court tier alone not a silver bullet to tackle rocketing backlogs

News

Solicitors have expressed pessimism over whether an additional court tier will help reduce the rocketing criminal court backlogs.

The Law Society of England and Wales carried out research, in collaboration with Sky News, asking solicitors for their views on potential reforms to the criminal courts.

Proposals include introducing an intermediate court, which would be known as the Crown Court Bench Division. The research revealed that:

• solicitors felt a broad range of measures would be required for an additional court tier to be effective, including additional court staff who are fully trained, and increased public funding for legal defence.*
• most solicitors think the introduction of an additional court tier would make the justice system worse (56%) and is unlikely to reduce the backlogs (60%).**
• almost three-quarters (73%) of the solicitors surveyed were concerned about jury trials being removed as part of the proposals.***

Law Society president Richard Atkinson said: “Our criminal justice system – a vital public service – has been starved of resources for decades with inevitable dire consequences.

“These include the massive criminal court backlogs which result in unacceptable delays for victims, witnesses and defendants, with cases listed for 2029.

“The research results reflect our concerns over the effectiveness of introducing an additional tier of courts when the existing magistrates’ courts and Crown Courts are already overwhelmed and under-resourced.

“Where are the spare judges, magistrates, court staff and lawyers going to come from? Unless action is taken to halt the dwindling availability of criminal defence solicitors, the reforms could be fatally undermined.

“While there is spare capacity in the court estate in some parts of the country, this is not universally the position and so extra physical capacity will also have to be found for the new court tier to be able to sit.

“Solicitors also share our concerns over removing the right to trial by jury for serious offences. The proposed new division of the Crown Court on its own is not a silver bullet and will not solve the Crown Court backlog. The government would have undermined our historic jury system for no effect.

“Only investment in the whole system, as envisaged by Sir Brian Leveson in his report, has any chance of success.”

Notes to editors

The survey ran from 30 May to 18 June with 545 solicitors responding.

*Measures required for an additional court tier to succeed:

**Introduction of an additional court tier:

***Impact of the reforms on jury trials: