Sympathetic ear: Justice Secretary Jack Straw changed the Bill after complaints from MPs
The British public are about to be presented with a series of “big ideas” to fix the criminal justice system which is currently utterly broken.
The rationale for radical change will seem overwhelming – 73,000+ cases in the Crown Court backlog, trials listed into 2028, victims and witnesses abandoning all hope in the torrid delays.
One of those “big ideas” has been pitched early, presumably to gauge the level of public opposition – replacing juries in some mid-level trials with a panel of a judge and two magistrates.
Jack Straw, the former Justice Secretary, is now arguing that defendants should be stripped of the right to elect a Crown Court jury trial, something he tried and failed to do 25 years ago when in power.
Labour is conducting a review into sentencing in the criminal courts, with the expectation of a dramatic increase in the use of out-of-court measures to try to tackle re-offending. A second review is looking at ways to tackle the record Crown Court backlogs, with its findings expected in the Spring.
An idea that’s already on the statute books but yet to become a reality is Online Plea and Allocation system, which would scrap thousands of magistrates court first appearances so that work could take place behind-closed-doors, supposedly to speed up the process.
The old adage is you fix the roof while the sun is shining. Criminal justice never seems to work like that
Labour made a General Election manifesto commitment to fast-track rape trials and set up dedicated courts to hear the cases, but no concrete plans for how those promises will be achieved without taking a wrecking ball to the other work of the courts.
There is no doubt that the courts are in a mess at the moment, the prisons are full, and without big changes the situation is not going to improve any time soon.
Years of managed decline from successive governments have led us to this point, where the system is effectively on its knees.
But this is all the more reason why there must be close scrutiny of everything laid on the table, and strong pushback to ideas that are simply bad.
The old adage is you fix the roof while the sun is shining. Criminal justice never seems to work like that.
We cut the budgets and let the roof rot, literally sometimes. In one court they found crumbling RAAC concrete in the roof, kept quiet and took no action to fix it, then had to condemn and close the building when the problem got worse.
Figuratively, we have let the justice system rot for many years. It is never a top priority in Westminster, budgets are not ring-fenced, and squeezing money from the system often seems like a good idea.
Under the Conservatives, courthouses were sold off in droves – some for good reason, others not – and judicial sitting days were cut in 2018/19, kick-starting the rise in the backlog.
When the pandemic struck, the courts, lawyers, judges, and staff battled valiantly to keep things running, but the system was fragile from the cuts and ill-prepared for dealing with seismic shocks.
Dominic Raab, as Justice Secretary, then got into a destructive stand-off over Legal Aid fees, despite dire warnings that lawyers – who keep the system running – were leaving the criminal sector in droves.
Author Naomi Klein argued in her 2007 book “The Shock Doctrine” that some politicians seek to exploit natural disasters, wars, and crises to push through unpopular policies and reforms.
Civil liberties were trampled over by the US government after the shock of 9/11, she argues, while private investors cynically capitalised on the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Mr Straw’s idea about taking away a defendant’s right to elect a jury trial may be well-meaning, and he obviously considers it a solid idea that would improve the system.
But he faced fierce opposition when it was first ventured, and it ultimately failed in Parliament in 2000. If it is to become a reality this time, it must be because it is the right thing to do, not simply because desperation has set in.
There was no noticeable clamour for jury trials to be cut back and replaced during better times
There was no noticeable clamour for jury trials to be cut back and replaced during better times for the justice system. If it happens, it may become permanent. Is that something that a thriving country would actually want?
Two incidents in recent memory show the power of chaos to get bad ideas over the line.
In 2015, the Single Justice Procedure was introduced after Parliament – exhausted from five years of austerity – was convinced that court hearings in public were a waste of money.
A decade on and deep flaws in the system that was brought introduce have been exposed. Injustices are rife, and trust in the courts has been affected as a result.
More recently, the government won permission to keep an extension containing five additional courtrooms at Woolwich crown court.
Great news, you may think, but that annex is a temporary structure with a building quality that was fit for only ten years when it was first installed in 2011. Councillors agreed it could be kept permanently in 2022, with the justification that we simply cannot cope without the extra courtrooms.
The disaster of the justice system right now means any ideas that might cut delays, slash the backlog, and put a fresh sheen on the work of the courts could seem palatable. Axing more public hearings to fast-track cases might be tempting, but the damage to public trust would surely overwhelm any gains that kind of reform might seek to achieve.
We must insist that only good ideas are welcome.
Tristan Kirk is the Standard’s courts correspondent