Pause

We're off for an autumn break just over the Channel next week, and I am leaving the technology behind. I'll be back online in a week or so.

Mind how you go, now.

Another Good Site

Thanks to Mike for pointing me towards the website of the Scottish Judiciary. I particularly like the listing of judges' sentencing remarks; these rarely appear in the press, but are crucial to understanding the how and why of sentencing.

A Classic Jury Point

A recent trial is an example of the sort of issue that is best resolved by a good solid jury.

Elf'n'Safety

The more strident commentators in the tabloids love a good Health and Safety (always suffixed by 'gone mad') story. "Why oh why?" demand the headlines.
The dull and predictable response, that H & S laws are about keeping people alive and uninjured, cuts no ice in the saloon bar when I am on the defensive on a Sunday lunchtime.
An hour or two ago a neighbour hammered on my door, shouting for me to call an ambulance. I did so, and went to find out that an Eastern European worker engaged in demolishing the house next-door-but-one had been injured. After a nerve-racking delay (that can't have been more than eight minutes) the ambulance turned up, and we all relaxed mentally as the calm efficiency of the ambulance crew took the weight from our shoulders.
Once the injured man had been taken away, a neighbour pointed out that he had been wearing no safety equipment, not even a hard hat, and that he and his colleague were, to put it bluntly, cowboys - but cheap.
I have no idea about the details of the incident, and I trust and hope that the injured man recovers quickly. But when the smart-arse commentators sneer at 'Elf'n'Safety' in future, I shall remember that for every jobsworth who bans a kids' egg-and-spoon race there is a cowboy contractor who lets his employees risk, and sometimes lose, their life or health.

Goodbye To All That

The last decade has seen London's Magistrates' Courts undergo fewer fundamental changes than some of our colleagues elsewhere - but we have been buggered about nevertheless, the most recent bright idea being clustering of courts to save money on administration.
The proposed reorganisation (which will be about the fifth that I have seen) will cut down the existing 28 Local Justice Areas (mostly coterminous with London's Boroughs) into 9. The proposed mergers, which are highly likely to go ahead despite localised opposition, are, for the record:-
Camden, Islington, Enfield and Haringey to be combined as North London Local Justice Area.
Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Stratford and Waltham Forest to become North East London LJA.
Barking, Havering and Redbridge to become East London LJA.
Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich and Lewisham to be to become South East London LJA.
Croydon, Lambeth & Southwark and Sutton to become South London LJA.
City of London, City of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham to become Central London LJA.
Kingston, Merton, Richmond and Wandsworth to become South West London LJA.
Ealing, Hillingdon and Hounslow to become West London LJA.
Barnet, Brent and Harrow to become North West London LJA.

Given the depth of he financial hole in which we find ourselves, most of these groupings seem to be plausible. Of course transport links and the like will be argued over,but think how much better-off we are in London than our rural cousins in benighted outposts such as East Anglia and Wales.
If this all comes to pass the civil servants will get on with trying to rationalise the admin, and magistrates will have to start working out the details of bench mergers.
Because magistrates ran their own affairs for over 500 years there are wide differences in day to day practice across the country. Rotas are drawn up in differing ways, by differing people, and on differing principles. For example some courts rota their JPs in half-days, as the rules say they should. Most courts don't because it's just too difficult to cope with. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Then new merged benches will need to have a single Chairman for 4-500 magistrates, but a deputy chairman for each courthouse will be a must. Hallowed local practices such as sitting on the same day each week will have to go. Hard work and goodwill are going to be needed to make this function. But function it must. I have seen badly organised mergers, leading in one appalling case, to two benches who share a courthouse (but not their biscuits, for God's sake!) and declining, when finishing early,to assist their colleagues on the 'other' bench by taking on some of their cases.
As I have said, goodwill, good humour and common sense are going to be at a premium while we sort this out. Failure is not an option.

Pros and Cons (2)

I blogged a long time ago about the ECHR ruling that serving prisoners should no longer be deprived of their vote.
The issue has resurfaced (typically, the last government quietly ignored the issue for years)and Nick Clegg is apparently going to speak about it at the LibDem conference.
As I said five years ago, it's hard to get too excited about prisoners' votes. The simple solution would be to allow a postal vote in the prisoner's usual constituency, I imagine. I have a suspicion that a large proportion of the criminal underclass neither registers nor votes, and that the remaining number of inmates would have a negligible effect on election outcomes.
I also suspect that such influence as there might be would veer towards the conservative. Prisoners are notoriously hard-line on law and order, especially on such transgressions as grassing, and want to see harsh measures against nonces. Legalisation of drugs would put many hard working dealers out of business, and the black market in mobile phones drugs and tobacco on the inside is a classic example of everyday free-enterprise.
Here's the Mail's take on it. For the umpteenth time lads, the ECHR is quite separate from the EU. And the court decision that binds the UK government was made years before Clegg was anywhere near office.

Headlines 'R' Us

I have never met District Judge Bruce Morgan, although I have seen his name in the press from time to time.
Try a Google search on his name. He certainly gets more media mentions than most judges or magistrates.

Poisoned Chalice

This reminds me of the first-class advice I received from a police officer before I made my first visit to a prison:-

"If you don't watch the tea being made, don't drink it".

is a principle I have adhered to ever since.

Welcome Newcomer

It's good to see a new blog by a Probation Officer. Probation is an essential but under-appreciated part of the justice system, and as an organisation has had to suffer a total change of direction from a social-worker approach ('advise, assist, befriend') to becoming part of the punitive apparatus.
The probation people who work out of my court include a couple of real stars; dedicated, professional, tough when they need to be and sympathetic when that is called for. Others are less good - sometimes reports show the inexperience of their author, as well as the prescriptiveness of the system, and occasionally they reveal dangerous levels of incompetence.
The blog is here. Give it a go, and wish him luck.

Yet More Code

I was recently in the Crown Court to hear an appeal with a Circuit Judge and a fellow JP.
There were some procedural problems, and after submissions from the two sides the judge summed up the situation in a neat few sentences, the effect of which was to leave counsel for the appellant in a very weak position.

"What do you say, Mr. McCarthy?" asked the judge. "Is that correct?"

Pause.

"It could be levelled as an argument, Your Honour".

Translated, that means:- "Bugger! You have got me there".

Appeal abandoned.