The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, this evening gave the annual Judicial Studies Board lecture, in which he reflected on his first year as head of the judiciary, under the title ‘Constitutional reform – one year on’.
Lord Phillips touched on a wide range of topics including the new administrative role being played by the judiciary:
“None of us had gone on the Bench because of a love of administrative duties. We viewed the effects of the constitutional changes with more than a little apprehension. I have to say that, rather to my surprise, I enjoy the administration, and I believe that this is true of most who are sharing the burdens of duties that go beyond the tasks of trying cases, directing juries, sentencing offenders and writing judgments that we took on when we became judges.
“Judging is necessarily a solitary task, and can be lonely. It contrasts with the teamwork involved in the administrative duties that so many of us now shoulder.
“I have been impressed by the dedication of the Resident Judges, the Designated Civil Judges, the Presiding Judges, the Chancery Judges and Family Judges who help to make sure that the administration of justice is running smoothly outside London. They take on a lot of extra work, and yet there is no lack of volunteers for these positions.
“The same is true of the Tribunal Presidents and the Bench Chairs. This is not just because of sense of duty, though sense of duty there is. It is because these posts give an added dimension to life that is both challenging and enjoyable.
He also refers to the progress made on judicial appointments, with a new independent Commission who make appointments solely on merit, but who have a brief to encourage diversity in the range of applicants seeking judicial office.
Lord Phillips reflected on the first year of a work for another new body, the Office for Judicial Complaints, in which he (with the Lord Chancellor) make decisions in the light of advice and recommendations arising from thorough investigations into complaints about judicial conduct.
The Lord Chief Justice also set out the areas of concern which he had identified over the course of his first year.
The first of these is the resources available to courts. The Lord Chancellor has a statutory duty to ensure courts are adequately resourced to ensure the effective operation of the court system. Lord Phillips said that he was concerned that the demands of legal aid expenditure were curtailing funds available for courts:
“Reports that I have been receiving from all over the country show that these economies imposed because of financial stringency are damaging the administration of justice – not dramatically and not to the extent that it can be clearly demonstrated that the Lord Chancellor is in breach of his statutory duty, but damaging none the less.”
Another concern set out by the Lord Chief Justice related to the work undertaken by magistrates.
Lord Phillips set out his strong support for the current initiative “simple, speedy, summary criminal justice” aimed at speeding up the process in criminal cases in the magistrates’ courts – with earlier guilty pleas and reducing the number of case management hearings.
However, he shared the concern voiced by many magistrates of the effects of the growth of ‘diversion’, where some minor offences are dealt with by the police by way of conditional cautions or fixed penalties. Lord Phillips said:
“Diversion can make sense for some minor offences, but magistrates are concerned that more serious cases should not be removed from their adjudication cases that call for an individual sanction that is designed to prevent re-offending. I share that concern.”
The Lord Chief Justice also said that he was currently discussing with the Magistrates’ Association the minimum sitting days for magistrates, and whether magistrates would be able to specialize exclusively on hearing family proceedings.
A further concern for the Lord Chief Justice in the past year has been sentencing, and the impact of legislation, sentencing guidelines and (latterly) that the prison population being at capacity was having on this issue.
Taking the example of murder as an offence, Lord Phillips said:
“The minimum terms now being imposed on many murderers are double those that were being imposed by Home Secretaries before the Criminal Justice Act 2003. In a recent lecture I expressed concern about the effect that this would have on prison occupancy many years ahead.
“I was not suggesting dangerous prisoners should be released. Of course they should not. I was questioning whether paying £40,000 a year to detain in prison old men who have served most of their lives there and who no longer pose a danger to the public is the best way of using the limited resources that are devoted to dealing with criminal behaviour.
“Ultimately, however this is a matter of penal policy for Parliament.”
The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips announced today that he was asking two senior judges to review the directions given to Crown Court judges on the summing-up they provide to a jury in a criminal trial.
Lord Phillips expressed his concern that juries are currently presented with much more detail than they need, especially on how they should approach the evidence they have heard:
“Of course a judge has to direct the jury on the law, and they have to be given a careful direction on the burden and standard of proof. But there has grown up a large body of directions that it is considered necessary to give to the jury that are no more than advice as to how to apply common sense to the evidence. Indeed in the past some directions have been contrary to common sense.”
The President of the Queen’s Bench Division and the Vice Chairman of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) - Sir Igor Judge and Lord Justice Latham respectively - have been asked to undertake a review and to consider the extent to which current practice meets with the demands of a fair trial.
The full text of Lord Phillips’ lecture is available here.
Ends
