Former Queen’s Bench president Sir Brian Leveson (pictured), who is leading a major review of the criminal courts to abolish juries help cut the Crown court backlog, wants lawyers to give him ‘ambitious’ evidence and ideas that ‘challenge current thinking’.
But perhaps he has already given us a preview of his findings. If Sir Brian is after inspiration, he need look no further than a 2015 report on criminal justice efficiency written by… Sir Brian.
In his 2015 report, produced in the aftermath of his lengthy investigation into the workings of the press, Sir Brian found plenty of fault with the criminal justice system. For example, the courts were ‘lagging significantly’ behind the business world in their use of IT.
In other findings that might be relevant a decade on, he suggested defence solicitors should be rewarded for ‘significant negotiations’ with the prosecution that would cut throughput and sitting time. Another idea was for HM Courts & Tribunals Service to be given transitional funding to provide additional sitting days and available judges to deal with legacy work and to process new cases earlier.
What’s that? More cash for courts as the Ministry of Justice finds hundreds of millions of pounds in ‘savings’ as part of chancellor Rachel Reeves’ crackdown on ‘wasteful’ Whitehall spending? Now that certainly would be ‘ambitious’.
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