One of Yorkshire’s leading criminal silks has provided his views on potential reforms to the criminal justice system.
Sir Brian Leveson was asked by the Lord Chancellor to come up with a series of proposals to reduce the backlog of cases in the criminal courts. There are almost 77,000 cases waiting for trial in the Crown Court in England and Wales – meaning some defendants and victims are waiting years for justice.
After reviewing the state of the criminal courts, Sir Brian suggested “fundamental” reforms to “reduce the risk of total system collapse”. To fix what he calls a broken system, Sir Brian has suggested having judge-only trials for certain cases such as fraud and bribery. Another recommendation involves having more out of court resolutions like cautions.
Commenting on the proposals, Nick Johnson KC from Exchange Chambers in Leeds said:
“Our criminal justice system stands at a critical juncture. Chronic delay leads to injustice and should not be underestimated. The true cause of the backlog is underfunding of the system by successive governments over many years. I welcome proper funded efforts to achieve pre-trial and even pre-charge resolutions, such as the wider use of deferred prosecution agreements, which so far have been used far too sparingly and only for corporate defendants.
“However, the jury is still out for me on judge only trials in complex fraud. Skilled judges and barristers already cut through the complexity in such cases so juries can understand the heart of the issues and come to sensible decisions based upon their collective and diverse experience. I await more details of the proposals with interest and hope they are not just driven by a desire to cut cost.”
