Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Sanity on the Horizon

The head of the judiciary in England and Wales said today that the criminal courts charge introduced by the last government for guilty defendants has ‘not gone correctly’ and needs to be reviewed ‘as soon as possible’.
Answering questions from journalists, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the lord chief justice, said that imposing the charge on top of other levies ‘is not raising much money’ and has increased the number of people who cannot pay.
He likened that to the situation posed by fixed penalty notices, where individuals found ‘very significant sums levied against them which they had absolutely no prospect of paying’.
When a policy ‘has not gone correctly’ it should be looked at again, he said. 
Pressed on what he meant by ‘not gone correctly’, Lord Thomas said: ‘It is obvious that there is a problem with financial penalties as a whole, so I would hope this is an area the government will engage with as soon as possible but in a wider context,’ he said. 
‘That’s why I very much hope that the lord chancellor will look at the matter in the round, and perhaps find an interim solution.’
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd said that the courts system as currently established would not be able to cope with a combination of spending cuts and an increased workload of complex sex, cybercrime and terrorism cases. ‘The only way forward is reform.’
He said that progress is being made on the Leveson proposals for increasing efficiency in criminal courts, but that more needs to be done. 
Answering questions from journalists, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the lord chief justice, said that imposing the charge on top of other levies ‘is not raising much money’ and has increased the number of people who cannot pay.
He likened that to the situation posed by fixed penalty notices, where individuals found ‘very significant sums levied against them which they had absolutely no prospect of paying’.
When a policy ‘has not gone correctly’ it should be looked at again, he said. 
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd said that the courts system as currently established would not be able to cope with a combination of spending cuts and an increased workload of complex sex, cybercrime and terrorism cases. ‘The only way forward is reform.’
He said that progress is being made on the Leveson proposals for increasing efficiency in criminal courts, but that more needs to be done. 
Containing a rise in costs is ‘critical to reform’, he said, noting that: ‘As for lawyers, the market has been good for them on the whole. Legal fees are high.’
I am humbly grateful that His Lordship has come round to my point of view at last. All that remains is for those of us who loathe injustice to club together to buy a suit of sackcloth for the appalling Grayling. I shall provide ashes without any fee.

18 comments:


  1. I never thought I would say this - but congratulations to Mr Gove for considering reviewing the CCC.
    And well done to the judges, JP's and papers such as the Independent for keeping the matter in the publicly.

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  2. Good, things are moving, common sense prevails but how were the difficulties not foreseen? Was there no consultation with the judiciary before the CCC was imposed? How was Chris Grayling allowed to shoot himself in the foot?

    What still remains is the £95 million that the CCC was meant to raise. The Chancellor will still expect it to come from some other source within HMCTS, unless he is forgiving and demands it from another Department.

    It may be a hollow victory.

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  3. Like most JP's I abhor the CCC and will greatly rejoice at its demise. However, I am left wondering whether ANY courthouse currently slated for closure in the Estates Review will now escape that fate. I believe a few were included so as to be reprieved to make the consultation look genuine (yes, I admit it, I'm a cynic). With the CCC going down the tubes as well as the cuts to Working Tax Credits being stalled, I fear that no court listed for closure will now survive - whatever the merits of keeping them open.

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  4. They will end up doing the right thing for the wrong reason - namely that it is not getting the money in.

    When it is dropped I would like to see existing cases where it has been collected in whole or in part considered - probably not difficult in the days of the computer. Where there is money still due for compensation or fines it should be appropriated to pay them, in that order of course, and if there is anything left I suppose it must go back to the offender. It won't happen, of course.

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  5. Anyone who had spent more than 24 hours in yer average Magistrates' Court would have known what a big mistake the CCC was. (This is really not an exaggeration : its failings are immensely obvious and also foreseeable).

    Trouble is that many MoJ policies are put together by management consultant wonkies, who have little idea of how vast and unattainable a sum £100 can be to many of our clients. (I have been privileged to see some dire, uninformed presentations made to the MoJ in my time).

    Is it too much to ask that anyone who is going to change how our courts work actually has some real and meaningful experience of them? Just observing for a week or two would be a start.

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  6. As I have posted here before, tell the CPS to ask for more sensible and realistic costs than £85 for a first appearance in the magistrates' court on a guilty plea, as we routinely hear. Benches are used to applying costs based on means and ability to pay. Some may well find they are contributing more than £85 and we will still be able to levy less where appropriate.

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  7. I hate to be a messenger of doom but Gove must get a move on if any change is really going to happen. The LCJ is being somewhat bold but he has actually skirted round the precise issue of the CCC. I am afraid that just saying 'the charge hasn't gone correctly' is is a complete cop out and he should have made these feelings known to government months ago - albeit in private if need be. The fact of the matter is the courts are still ordering CCC payments and they are added to the vast amount of unpaid debt not collected anyway. Happy to wait and see but I won't say I told you so when it all goes pear shaped.....

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  8. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has Lord Chancellor Gove by the scruff of the neck. Nothing will happen.

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    1. "The Chancellor of the Exchequer has Lord Chancellor Gove by the scruff of the neck. Nothing will happen." - and the Lord Chief Justice would seem to have him by the throat. It will be an interesting tussle.

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  9. I had a feeling of Deja Vu reading this until I noticed that paragraphs 2 to 8 have been repeated.

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  10. What is wrong with closing under-used courts? Justices will be able to continue to deal with (very) low level offences. not liable to custodial disposals, from local venues such as hotels, community centres etc. Long forecast and now fairly imminent.

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    1. How many "very low level" cases does the average court see these days? TV licences and motoring are now out of our lists. Out of court disposals take away even more. Who exactly determines that a case will not result in custody? What about misbehaviour on the end of a video link? What about the dignity of the court? Are you actually a magistrate?

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    2. Our local court, which is certainly not under-used, is earmarked for closure. There is no public transport to the next open one in the county which could possibly allow a defendant to arrive in time for a morning hearing, even if he/she could afford the cost. This is despite the full panoply of courts being within half an hour's hourly train ride, but then they are in a different judicial area.

      The decision to close our local court is flawed in the extreme. The evidence for doing so is completely erroneous. They say the court is not disabled-friendly, when in fact only fairly recently it was completely upgraded!

      As for the criminal court charge, never have I been so glad as to have retired. I really feel for new magistrates who have to put up with the nonsense meted out by the powers-that-be these days.

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  11. I don't mind doing so in a venue other than a court so long as I'm not sitting four feet away from a potentially unpredictable defendant (and the offence is not always relevant to the predictability of their behaviour) and I do not have to go through the same public areas to leave as the defendants I have just sentenced.

    I think security in the magistrates' courts in my cluster is woeful and sadly it will remain that way until something serious happens.

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    1. Somethings serious have already happened but the facts aren't reported at national or even local level. I know because I sat on a committee at RCJ that had regular reports and the number of knives confiscated at the main entrance at courts runs into thousands. There are also the issues of Family courts where I also sat and emotions run high if not higher there. These wonderful ideas such as doing away with the dock as suggested by LCJ and letting defendants sit next to their representatives is also crazy. Every American court is running over with bailiffs, police and sheriffs unlike us where there are no police and a few mitie guards if you are lucky. Even in the US they shackle defendands if they are at risk of misbehavior. I have personally been in court when a defendant has kicked off and escaped from the dock because the door hadn't been locked properly! Give me a break.

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  12. I generally try to read these things carefully, but today my over-caffeinated brain grabbed this fragment - "an increased workload of complex sex" - and pulled up in a screeching halt.

    Then I re-read it more carefully, and felt a wash of relief, so to speak.

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  13. It's official then.

    See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34993428

    But what happens between now and Christmas will be even more perverse than what's been happening since May.

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