Government record on criminal #justice on trial 26/9/22
Government data
“Expenditure on criminal legal aid has reduced by £ 1 billion pounds since 2005/2006 (from £1.68 billion in 2005/2006 to £ 617 million in 2021/2021). This significant decline is reflected in this chart”
👇🏼
HHJ Raynor asked
“What then is the evidence of systemic failure and of the chronic and predictable consequences of underfunding?
“35.Treasury Annual Resource figures show a decrease of over 20% in funding for courts between 2010/11 and 2014/15, continuing through to 2019.”
Impact on victims of crime from Govt justice underfunding
HHJ Raynor cited Govt appointed @VictimsComm “criminal justice system that is severely and recklessly underfunded. And it is victims who are ultimately paying the price and will continue to suffer the longer this goes on”
Assertion repeated by @VictimsComm in person 23/9/22 in open letter to Government pre Monday’s judicial review
“little has been done to effectively tackle the enormous and catastrophic backlog of cases, particularly in the Crown Court where the most serious crimes are tried”
“This has exposed victims of these crimes to intolerable delay, anguish and uncertainty. It is no exaggeration to say that the criminal justice system is in chaos” @MoJGovUK Government appointed @VictimsComm 23/9/22 re
60,000 case backlog static for 1 year
@HMCTSgovuk evidence👇🏽
HHJ Raynor reminded court that in early autumn 2020 @hmcts committed “outstanding jury trial caseload may be reduced to pre-Covid levels by March 2023”
So on @HMCTSgovuk data available then under 40,000 or at most 40,037 (end March 2020 but Covid shut courts 22/3/20)
“latest stated ambition is to reduce the Crown Court backlog by less than 8,000 cases by March 2025 House of Commons Public Accounts Committee stated, it remains unconvinced of the Department’s intentions to reduce waiting times in the Crown Court, given slow pace of recovery”
Here’s @CommonsPAC key point on reducing backlog at all “significant, systemic challenges that threaten its achievement including having enough judges, legal professionals and local staff to support criminal courts” made 9 March 2022
Over 6 months ago
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committees.parliament.uk/publications/9…
HHJ Raynor 8/9/22 cites Lord Chief Justice evidence @UKHouseofLords 16/5/22 “we’re struggling to deploy judges and the legal profession is struggling to deploy lawyers. So those are really big capacity issues which we’re still grappling with” here 👇🏼
LCJ first warned 16/11/2021 !
Lord Chief Justice 16/11/21:
“systemic problem, both with judicial resource and lawyer resource that has got to be dealt with.”
“a problem in the criminal legal profession, and the likely reason is the relentless reduction in real rates of remuneration over the last 15 years”
HHJ Raynor on @MoJGovUK data “Underfunding-Cases not proceeding due to lack of advocates
43. Between January and March 2022, 370 trials were postponed, due to the lack of a prosecution or defence advocate. 11 This was prior to the commencement of the current action in April 2022”
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