Government limits risks to justice
21 Jun 2005
The measures, legislated for in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, are designed to reduce the length of complex fraud trials and the subsequent risk that they will collapse at huge cost to the taxpayer, which has happened in a number of high profile cases. They will also bring more offenders to justice, with charges that adequately reflect their criminality and reduce the burden on jurors.
This is something which has been called for over a number of years, for example in the reports by Auld and Roskill. It was promised as part of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and will be debated in both houses of Parliament this autumn. If passed, it is likely to come into affect from January 2006.
The Attorney General said:
"It is vital that the criminal justice system should be capable of dealing with all of those who are accused of serious wrongdoing. This has not always been the case in the most serious and complicated fraud cases.
"In spite of efforts to keep complex trials within reasonable bounds, some drag on for months, which poses an intolerable burden on jurors. Also, if trials collapse, they do so at the cost of many millions to the taxpayer.
However, the Government believes that the vast majority of serious offences should continue to be tried by judge and jury."
Home Office Minister Fiona Mactaggart said:
"The Government wants to deliver justice and reducing the length of trials and improving their efficiency can contribute to that. A more robust and well-informed approach to case management to enable the court to focus on the real issues is already making an impact. Ineffective trials in the Crown Court, for instance, have fallen by more than a third since 2002.
"However better case management will not in itself be sufficient to confine the length of the most complex trials within reasonable bounds, or prevent such trials from imposing an intolerable burden on the jury."
Robert Wardle, Director of the Serious Fraud Office said:
"Some cases cannot be dealt with by the traditional jury system. It is not a matter of whether jurors understand the complexities, it is a question of whether we can achieve a fair trial and a just result. In some cases this cannot be done because of their size and complexity which means that a manageable trial in front of a jury of all the relevant evidence is impractical."