Struggling to cope The quality of the CPS’s handling of disclosure remained ‘unacceptably low’ with prosecutors failing to identify when police had not disclosed all the relevant evidence in more than half of cases, as reported by the Justice Gap. The new study by HM Chief Inspector Kevin McGinty followed a damning 2017 joint inspection
A symbol of swashbuckling womanhood Lawyers fell over themselves to pay tribute to the, er, Beyoncé of the legal profession – Lady Brenda Hale retires next month. ‘Clearly, she is a woman who cannot see a glass ceiling without breaking through it,’ said Lord Reed, the incoming Supreme Court president. ‘All these achievements, and the personality
The morning after the night before ‘With a sizeable majority secured, the eyes of the legal profession now turn to Boris Johnson and his government and how they intend to run the justice system,’ began an article this morning by John Hyde in the Law Society’s Gazette. Chancery Lane said that ‘repairing the system and
Weapons-grade shithousery Boris Johnson was accused of plagiarism – not to mention ‘weapons-grade shithousery’ – by the Secret Barrister for having ‘basically copied and pasted my blog post’ (as reported in the Independent). Over the weekend the PM posted a 16 tweet thread on the London Bridge terror case about sentencing which bore an uncanny
Manifestly awful The Conservative party manifesto delivered on its well-trailed promises of 20,000 new police officers, 10,000 more prison places and a ratcheting up of sentencing powers – reported in the Justice Gap. A raft of criminal justice policies were unveiled which would represent a clampdown on the perceived excesses of ‘soft justice’ as identified
Manifesto promises ‘Whatever the intentions of politicians and commentators, this general election is destined to be the narrowest of single-issue campaigns. Brexit will push other issues such as justice to the fringes of debate and those important but perhaps technical issues that typically struggle for airspace (eg, legal aid) won’t have a look in,’ I
Perverse incentives Conviction targets may be behind the decline in rape prosecutions which are at their lowest since 2008 – as revealed by freelance journalist Melanie Newman in an investigation for the Law Society Gazette. The CPS code of practice states that offenders must be charged if a conviction is in the public interest and is
Two-tier justice Maya Goodfellow wrote about the ‘dizzying maze’ that is the UK immigration system in a Guardian long read. ‘Support for immigration and asylum cases is almost non-existent unless you have the money to pay for it,’ she concluded. ‘When you are not allowed to work – as is the case for people seeking
Courts ‘strained to breaking’ MPs called for a ‘pause for breath’ on the government’s £1.2bn court modernisation programme as well as an ‘immediate moratorium’ on court closures (as reported on the Justice Gap). In a damning report that described the justice system as in ‘administrative chaos’, the House of Commons’ justice committee warned that the
Commission on Justice for Wales Wales should have full control of its justice system with powers to run policing, prisons and appoint its own judges, says an independent commission (as reported by BBC News). People in Wales are ‘let down by the system in its current state’, concluded the Commission on Justice for Wales. ‘As
