Piecemeal reform won’t fix the criminal justice system

News

Piecemeal reform of the criminal justice system – a vital public service – will not tackle the court backlogs, the Law Society of England and Wales has warned ahead of the second reading of the Courts and Tribunals Bill tomorrow (10 March).

“A fair, coordinated, whole-system approach, including sustained investment in the workforce, infrastructure and technology, is needed to restore confidence in this vital public service,” said immediate past president of the Law Society Richard Atkinson.

“The UK government must also reduce the overall volume of cases entering the system and take action to resolve persistent failures of prisoners being brought to court on time.

“There are no quick fixes. The government must avoid implementing standalone measures that risk diminishing fairness and trust in the system, such as changing from jury trials to judge-alone, particularly without convincing evidence they will bring the backlog down significantly.

“Piecemeal reforms accompanied by isolated injections of funding will not be enough to restore this vital public service back to health.”

Ahead of the second reading of the Courts and Tribunals Bill, the Law Society said:

• removing a defendant’s right to elect jury trial and moving to judge-only hearings are significant departures from Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations and we oppose them
• the government’s modelling does not provide good enough evidence that judge-only trials would reduce the backlogs
• if the government insists on implementing the Crown Court Bench division, this radical change proposed by Sir Brian of a judge sitting with two magistrates should be tested by a pilot against the twin objectives of ensuring trials are fair and reducing the backlogs
• retrospectively removing the right to jury trial to defendants already in the system will lead to legal challenges causing further delay and uncertainty for victims and defendants
• the bill will result in more unrepresented defendants in the magistrates’ courts unless the legal aid means test there is levelled up with that for the Crown Court
• retaining large volumes of cases in the magistrates’ courts will result in lower remuneration for criminal legal aid solicitors, putting further pressure on already fragile legal aid firms. This is despite the claim in the impact assessment that there will be no impact on small firms

Notes to editors

Contact the Press Office for our full parliamentary briefing,

See our detailed responses to parts I and II of Sir Brian Leveson’s report.