Archive for November 2020
Launch of the Administrative Justice Council Newsletter
Useful summary of just published newsletter from the Administrative Justice Council.
Launch of the Administrative Justice Council Newsletter
Starting November 2020, the Administrative Justice Council (‘AJC’) has launched a new tri-annual newsletter which will highlight the current work of the AJC and its members.
The first edition of the newsletter includes a review of the AJC’s recent Windrush Scandal webinar on 29 September, its responses to recent consultations regarding the future of legal aid and the Independent Review of Administrative Law, together with details regarding its survey on providing welfare benefit advice during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The first edition of the newsletter is available here. Those who wish to receive the updates should contact ajc@justice.co.uk.
Collection of responses to the Independent Review of Administrative Law (IRAL)
Given the importance of judicial review, it seems strange that the Independent Review of JR, chaired by Lord Faulks, decided it would not publish submissions it received to the Consultation it launched. This blog from the UK Institute for Administrative Justice very usefully provides a list of those submissions of which it is aware, with links to them.
Given the decision of the Independent Review of Administrative Law (IRAL) not to make publicly available responses received as part of its call for evidence, UKAJI has decided to bring together in one place IRAL responses which have been made public. Should you wish to include an IRAL responses on this page, please contact Lee Marsons on lm17598@essex.ac.uk.
- The Administrative Justice Council (AJC)published its response to the IRAL
- The Administrative Law Bar Association (ALBA)published its response to the IRAL.
- Matrix Chamberspublished its response to the IRAL.
- Paul Daly (University of Ottawa)published his response to the IRAL.
- Young Legal Aid Lawyerspublished its response to the IRAL.
- The Public Law Projectpublishedits submission to the Independent Review of Administrative Law.
- Oxford Human Rights Hubpublished its response to the IRAL.
- British Institute of Human Rightspublished its response to the IRAL
View original post 231 more words
Sentencing Act 2020 given Royal Assent
On 22 October 2020, the Sentencing Act 2020 received the Royal Assent. A commencement date has not yet been set, but once it is, the Sentencing Code – which the Act contains – will come into force.
I have considered the content of the Code at https://martinpartington.com/2020/07/21/enacting-the-sentencing-code/
This is a significant achievement, undertaken by the Law Commission, which hopefully will bring greater clarity to the rules which the courts must apply when they sentence those convicted of crimes.
A press notice is at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sentencing-code-granted-royal-assent
The ethics of pro bono
Very interesting reflections on ethics and pro bono law work by the leading commentator on the regulation of the legal professions
A second nation-wide lockdown is now less than 48 hours away.Many of our fellow citizens will as a consequence face unexpected and unwelcome legal issues, and I suspect many of their needs will be met through pro bono provision.
I was therefore honoured and delighted to offer some opening thoughts this morning to a very important and timely seminar hosted by LawWorks and the University of Bristol as part of Pro Bono Week.I was invited to share my reflections on the two-year Independent Review of Legal Services Regulation that I concluded in June and the associated landscape of legal professional ethics. Here are those reflections (also available as a PDF).
View original post 1,084 more words
Covid-19 and the English Legal System (15) – Criminal Justice in existential crisis?
On Friday 30 October 2020 a research consultancy, Crest, published a report Impact and legacy of Covid-19 on the CJS: Modelling overview. Using existing data to model future developments, the report set out what it regarded as the possible impact of Covid-19 on the Criminal Justice System.
The rather sober title of the report was not matched by the press release Crest drafted to draw attention to its study. This was headed “A perfect storm: why the criminal justice system is facing an existential crisis”. This apocalytic vision certainly caught the eye of some journalists – which is of course the reason why I am now writing about it now.
And the report is a really important one, which underscores the urgent need for the Government to get on with the appointment and work of the promised Royal Commission on the Criminal Justice system. (See https://martinpartington.com/2020/07/13/royal-commission-on-the-criminal-justice-system-details-awaited/)
The report starts by reminding readers that, even before Covid-19, the CJS was facing a number of long-standing problems: decreasing charge rates, worsening court timeliness and an estimated backlog in the courts of c.104K
cases, prisons and probation operating at full capacity. Covid-19 has added to those pressures. The report also predicts a future of increased pressure, the consequence of the likely rise in long term unemployment due to the economic impact of Covid, leading to more crime, and the 20,000 increase in police officer numbers, leading to more detection and the need to process more people through the system.
The research team’s modelling suggests, that without any action, the Crown Court backlog is projected to increase from c.45.5K in 2019 in to c.195.5K (x4) in 2024. and the magistrates’ court backlog is projected to increase from c.58.6K in 2019 to 580.3K (x10) in 2024.
Current responses by Government – e.g. making more courts covid-safe and opening Nightingale Courts in a number of town – just do not cut the mustard, in Crest’s view. Much more dramatic action is needed.
The principal criticism contained in the report is that there is currently no ‘whole-system’ view of the challenges facing the CJS. Different parts of the system work in isolation from other parts.
For example: the 20K police uplift will lead to a rise in pressure on the court backlogs; if the courts increase their outflow in sentenced cases, there will be a rise in pressure on prisons and probation.
Furthermore, assuming equilibrium is achieved in courts, suspended sentence orders are projected to increase by 24%, post-release supervision caseload will increase by 30% and community sentence orders are projected to increase by 14% by 2024. This will put extreme pressure on a probation service which was already underperforming.
There is, in the report’s view, inadequate recognition within Government of the interdependencies of each part of the criminal justice system.
The Crest report states that
“to bring the backlog back to pre-Covid levels will require a change in more than just capacity.
Options include:
● increasing the speed with which cases are dealt with: e.g. increasing the efficiency of listing, decreasing victim attrition, decreasing cracked trials etc.
● decreasing the amount of cases entering the court system by increasing effective out of court disposals
● decreasing the amount of police recorded crime originally entering the CJS through effective crime prevention programmes.”
I think some would argue that this list of options is not an original one. All these ideas have been discussed within the CJS, and achieving the outcomes suggested in the report is not easy. But what this report has very effectively done is highlight precisely the challenges that the now increasingly delayed Royal Commission must address. It should be a matter of urgency for the Government to get the Commission up and running.
The Crest Report is available at https://www.crestadvisory.com/post/covid-19-and-the-criminal-justice-system
Covid 19 and the English Legal System (14) – Family Justice
As with all parts of the English Legal system, the family justice system has had to cope with the effects of Covid-19. A new report from the Nuffield Justice Family Justice Observatory takes a fresh look at how the system has been coping – in particular with the use of remote (where both parties are not in court) and hybrid (where one party is in court) hearings. It is based on a survey of 1300 people involved in family law cases, undertaken in September 2020. It is a follow-up to their first snapshot survey undertaken in April 2020. (see https://martinpartington.com/2020/07/07/covid-19-and-the-english-legal-system-10-family-justice/)
This second survey and accompanying report shows that “most professionals (86%) felt that things were working more smoothly and some reported benefits to working remotely, for both parties and themselves.” However, “[t]hey shared concerns about the difficulties of being sufficiently empathetic, supportive and attuned to lay parties when conducting hearings remotely’. Nonetheless “more than three quarters (78%) felt that fairness and justice had been achieved in the cases they were involved with most or all of the time”.
When it came to how parents and relatives themselves felt. “a majority… (88%) reported having concerns about the way their case was dealt with, and two thirds (66%) felt that their case had not been dealt with well. Two in five (40%) said they had not understood what had happened during the hearing”.
As might be anticipated, there were complaints about problems with connectivity. And there was a feeling that for remote hearings telephone links were not as satisfactory as video links.
The President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew Macfarlane has welcomed the report and undertaken to ensure that the issues raised are addressed.
One specific point made by the Nuffield authors is that they do not expect any early change to practices currently in use to deal with the implications of Covid 19. Because of the urgency of many of the issues which which the family court has to deal, it is essential that all those involved continue to work to improve what is currently happening. Of course, the longer this goes on, the more evidence can be obtained about what works well in the new system as well as what does not work well. I am sure that, after Covid-19, the system as a whole will not return to its pre-pandemic state.
The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory Report and Consultation are at https://www.nuffieldfjo.org.uk/resource/remote-hearings-september-2020.
Sir Andrew Macfalane’s comments are at: https://www.judiciary.uk/announcements/remote-hearings-in-the-family-justice-system-follow-up-consultation-report/