Martin Partington: Spotlight on the Justice System

The newly appointed Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke, has delivered an important speech which gives some clear hints at how justice policy is going to shape up in the coming months. The widely reported feature of the speech related to sentencing policy and Mr Clarke’s desire to prevent the prison population growing even more than it has done in recent years. But the speech contains equally clear hints that there are likely to be significant other developments as well. Three issues are singled out for attention: major restructuring of the court estate, with large numbers of court closures likely; further emphasis on reform of family procedure, with more diversion of cases from court (see also Mavis Maclean podcast); and more change to legal aid. There is little detail in the speech; this will begin to emerge in the autumn. But the speech is worth reading for what is likely to be announced in coming months.
The full speech may be read at http://www.justice.gov.uk/sp300610a.htm

As part of its response to the problem of domestic violence, the Government has established a number of specialist courts where staff have been specially training to deal with DV cases. In March 2010, it was announced that the total of these courts had been increased to 141.

Key features of the courts include:

• trained and dedicated criminal justice staff with enhanced expertise in dealing with domestic violence, including magistrates specially trained in dealing with domestic violence cases
• tailored support and advice from independent domestic violence advisers
• multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARAC) to provide protection for those most at risk of harm.

New provisions to designed to protect the victims of domestic violence are included in the Crime and Security Act 2010, which was passed in April 2010 just before Parliament rose for the General Election campaign.

The Government has announced a fundamental review of the family justice system. It is to have the following guiding principles:

1. The interests of the child should be paramount
2. The court’s role should be focused on protecting the vulnerable from abuse, victimisation and exploitation
3. Individuals should have the right information and support to enable them to take responsibility for the consequences of relationship breakdown
4. Mediation and similar support should be used as far as possible
5. Processes should be easy to understand, simple and efficient
6. Conflict between individuals should be minimised as far as possible

Against this background, the review will examine:

1. The extent to which the adversarial nature of the court system is able to promote solutions
2. The options for introducing more inquisitorial elements into the family justice system
3. Whether there are areas of family work which could be dealt with more simply and effectively administrative, rather than court-based process
4. The roles fulfilled by all of the different agencies and professionals in the family justice system

What is omitted from this preliminary list is the question whether there should be a separately identifiable family court to replace the current mix of magistrates’ courts, county courts and high court. It is expected that the outcome of the review will be published in about 18 months time.

For further details about the review, including details of the membership of the panel are at http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/newsrelease160210a.htm