The Ministry of Justice have announced plans to close 157 magistrates and county courts in England and Wales, at a saving of £36.8m.

In a written statement to the Commons on 23 June, Secretary of State Kenneth Clarke said that Her Majesty’s Courts Service (HMCS) currently operates out of 530 courts, some of which do not fit the needs of modern communities. Their number and location do not reflect recent changes in population, workload or transport and communication links over the years since they were originally opened. Consultation papers have been published setting out proposals to close 103 magistrates courts and 54 county courts and inviting views on how best to provide local justice services in communities across England and Wales. He said: “In reaching decisions on closures I will ensure that we keep courts in the most strategically important locations, communities continue to have access to courts within a reasonable travelling distance, that cases are heard in courts with suitable facilities and that there is an overall reduction in cost.” Closure of the courts covered in the consultation would achieve running cost savings of around £15.3 million per year. These courts also have backlog maintenance of around £21.5 million, costs that can be avoided if the closures go ahead. “I believe that as well as savings to HMCS there will also be savings for other criminal justice agencies by focusing their attendance at a single accessible location within a community.”
 
The Secretary of State added that current arrangements are historical and now need to be reassessed to see if they meet the needs of today’s society. Modern communications and greater transport facilities mean that providing access to justice does not require a courthouse in every town or city. He said that, across the civil and criminal courts, there are great opportunities to harness technology more effectively so people do not necessarily have to physically attend court when they give evidence or access court services. Not all disputes need to be resolved in court. “I will also examine ways of enabling more people to resolve their disputes in a way that leads to faster and more satisfactory solutions. We will continue to develop proposals for introducing alternatives that deliver a better service for less money.”

Courts Minister Jonathan Djanogly said: ‘The Lord Chancellor and I are keen to hear the views of everyone with an interest in local justice arrangements. He will take all views into account before making any decision on which courts ought to be closed and when. As well as consulting on the courts we need today I want to begin a conversation about how the courts service could be modernised to improve the justice system as well as reduce its costs.”
The closing date for consultation responses is 15 September 2010. The full list of courts threatened with closure, together with links to the consultation documents, can be found at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/announcement230610a.htm

The Government has wasted no time in pursuing its aim to review the legal aid system as promised in the Coalition programme for government published in May.

In a written ministerial statement to Parliament on 23 June, Secretary of State for Justice Kenneth Clarke set out the background of the Government’s immediate priority to reduce the financial deficit and encourage economic recovery. The main burden of the deficit reduction is to be borne by reduced public spending, coupled with the most efficient and effective delivery of public services. He said: “I am seeking to develop an approach to legal aid spending which balances these necessary financial constraints with the interests of justice and the wider public interest. We will seek to develop an approach which is compatible with fair and necessary access to justice for those who need it most, the protection of the most vulnerable in our society, the efficient performance of the justice system, and our international legal obligations.” He concluded by stating that the government will consider the policy and intend to seek views on a proposed new approach in the autumn.

The Law Society had already fired its first shot across the bows in late May when it warned that plans announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to cut the Ministry of Justice budget by £325 million must not include front line legal aid services at a time when the public needs them the most. This warning came after a recent YouGov poll revealed public support for legal aid. The research, conducted on behalf of legal research company Jures, showed that over two-thirds of consumers backed publicly funded legal advice through the legal aid system for those unable to afford a lawyer. Law Society President Robert Heslett said: “In a time of austerity, it is no doubt tempting to see legal aid as an area where cuts could safely be made without arousing voter concern, but this is precisely the time when legal aid services are most needed, to protect ordinary people from unfair decisions about issues on their employment, housing and benefit entitlement; more than that, to ensure that children receive the best representation in care and family cases.” He added that he hoped the necessary cuts would come from the Legal Service Commission’s own administrative costs and the fees of a very few extremely well paid barristers rather than funds required for legal aid. “We are urging the Justice Secretary to make savings in areas that will not deny the public basic legal rights.”

It will come as no surprise that the results of yet another new survey have burst upon an expectant world. According to the Learning and Skills Council, we Brits live up to our reputation as the world’s greatest faffers. The shock revelation is that that an average of 40 days a year is wasted as the vast majority of Brits (80 per cent) admit to wasting time everyday, and just under half estimate they ‘faff around’ for as much as 2-3 hours a day. High on the list of time wasting occupations are gossiping, shopping for unessential bits and pieces, waiting for other people and waiting for the bathroom. I’m just surprised that staring out of the window, doodling,  bending paper clips, listening to the test match, agonising over World Cup competitions, playing solitaire on the computer and  a whole host of other pleasurable activities don’t make the list. Apparently nearly a third of respondents were annoyed at the amount of time they wasted in a day, which in my book means that over two thirds weren’t.

The Learning and Skills Council take a dim view of all this and, grinding their own axe, state that we should “use the time (wasted) learning a new skill”. A time management guru is wheeled out for a spot of nannyish scolding to the effect that he is “committed to making people understand the benefits of making the most of their own time. We live in a busy world. We’re working harder and juggling more than we used to – and, clearly, the nation is also spending more time ‘faffing’ than they should.” You can read all this stuff at http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National/nat-555britswasteday-aug08.pdf.

I disagree. Precisely because we are working harder, faffing is an important safety mechanism. Human beings are not made for constant toil. Faffing is harmless, which cannot always be said of relentless purposeful activity. True enough, life is real and life is earnest, but there is something to be said for the Welsh poet William Henry Davies who, in several years living as a vagrant, took faffing to a whole new level. The Learning and Skills Council would definitely not have approved. But he wrote an acclaimed memoir ‘Autobiography of a Super-Tramp’ and penned the oft quoted lines:

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

The blog posted on 23 June 2009 concerned the annual report by Lord Carlile, the government’s official anti-terror law watchdog, about the use of s.44 Terrorism Act 2000, which grants police the power to stop and search anyone in a designated area without suspicion that an offence has occurred. He found that examples of poor or unnecessary use of the section abound. “I have evidence of cases where the person stopped is so obviously far from any known terrorism profile that, realistically, there is not the slightest possibility of him/her being a terrorist” he said. He added that terrorism related powers should be used only for terrorism related purposes, otherwise their credibility is severely damaged.

Another blog, posted on 27 January this year, reported the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights that police stop and search powers under anti-terrorism legislation in the United Kingdom are too wide and not adequately safeguarded by the law against abuse. The Court concluded that the powers of authorisation and confirmation, as well as those of stop and search under ss. 44 and 45, were neither sufficiently circumscribed nor subject to adequate legal safeguards against abuse. They were not, therefore, “in accordance with the law”, in violation of Article 8.

Now comes another embarrassment for the police service with the revelation that tens of thousands of people have been stopped in the street and searched unlawfully, and it could be that they are all entitled to compensation. Fourteen police forces are urgently trying to find the individuals involved after being told by the Home Office that errors had been found in the way 40 separate stop and search operations were authorised since the powers were introduced in 2001. The Home Office said that in most of the cases authorisations were issued for periods beyond the 28-day statutory limit for each operation or were not signed off by ministers within the statutory 48-hour deadline. The Met and City of London police were responsible for 10 of the 40 illegal operations. Thames Valley police were responsible for six, Sussex five and Greater Manchester three.

Nick Herbert, the police minister, said in a written Commons statement on 10 June that the mistake was discovered after a freedom of information request triggered a review of the Metropolitan police’s s. 44 records, which in turn led to a comprehensive review by the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism. He said: “To summarise these errors, on 33 occasions authorisations were specified to be for 29 days, and two occasions when the authorisations were specified to be for 30 days, whereas the statutory maximum period is 28 days. In addition, there was one further case…where ministerial confirmation for the authorisation was not provided within the statutory 48 hour deadline”. Four other cases were mentioned. He concluded: “I am aware that there is considerable concern about the operation of section 44 stop-and-search powers going beyond these authorisation errors. The Government are committed to a wider review of counter-terrorism legislation, including the operation of the section 44 stop-and-search provisions.”

The latest Home Office statistics show that there were 148,798 stop and searches under section 44 in 2009, 40 % fewer than the previous year.  A total of 688 arrests were made as a result of these searches, an arrest rate of 0.5%.

One of the more surprising pledges in the Coalition programme for government was: “We will extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants.” This move would turn the clock back to 1976, when the Sexual Offences Act introduced anonymity for those accused of rape. The provision was later repealed.

 This proposal has produced a storm of adverse publicity. Granting anonymity to defendants accused of rape could lead to serial attackers slipping through the net, campaigners, victims and lawyers have warned. Women who had not previously had the confidence to report a rape were often inspired to do so after seeing media reports naming and picturing the same man. Ruth Hall, a spokeswoman for Women against Rape, said that the proposal could put women off coming forward to report rapes, hitting the already low conviction rate. Concern has been expressed that the proposal, intended to protect men from the damaging impact of false allegations, gave the impression that women frequently lie about rape. Baroness Stern, in her review of rape (see blog posted on 25 March), said that the subject of false allegations came up so often in discussions about rape, and the information about the prevalence of false allegations is so scanty, that research should be undertaken to establish their frequency before any view was reached on anonymity for defendants. As reported in the ‘Guardian’, Labour peer Helena Kennedy QC said the naming of accused rapists helped police investigations. “People who commit crimes like rape and serious crimes of violence, particularly sexually motivated ones, are often repeat offenders,” she said. “What the police will tell you is that very often the exposure of the identity of the accused brings forward other people.”

Speaking in the adjournment debate in the House of Commons on 7 June, Caroline Flint said: “Those proposals, if implemented, would deter victims from coming forward and make it far more difficult for the police to charge offenders and convict rapists. We know that many rapists are serial offenders; their trail of victims often runs into double digits. Many women – for a variety of reasons – do not come forward straight away. They are afraid; they want to pretend it never happened. They are embarrassed; they feel as though they did something wrong. They are ashamed; they believe that what happened was their fault. They feel alone.” She will have been aware that she was pressing on a door which, if not open, was certainly not locked. Earlier in the day, also in the Commons, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg signalled a new willingness to drop the government’s plans. He said: “Everybody is united in wanting the conviction rates for rape to increase. Everybody wants more support to be provided to victims of rape so that they come forward in the first place, while also wanting to minimise the stigma attached to those who might be falsely accused. However, I want to make it clear that, although the Government have proposed the idea, we want to listen to everybody who has a stake or expertise in or insight into the matter. If our idea does not withstand sincere scrutiny, we will of course be prepared to change it.”

Law Society research has found a growing divide in the PII market with smaller firms and black and minority ethnic (BME) firms finding renewal tougher than the wider profession.

The survey found more BME firms (16%) than wider profession firms (6%) were not offered cover by their previous insurer. BME firms were notified of a decision by insurers later than the wider profession (56 days compared to 44 for the wider profession). The survey said: “It may be that the set of criteria being applied by insurance firms when deciding whether to provide insurance and at what price is in some circumstances having a disproportionately adverse affect on BME firms.” But according to Afua Hirsch, writing in the ‘Guardian’, BME lawyers are claiming racial discrimination in being refused compulsory insurance. “Some minority ethnic lawyers have seen their professional indemnity insurance rise by 800%, despite having no complaints or claims against them.”

The survey states that “it is difficult to explain these differences given the diverse risk profiles of these firms, the small sample sizes and a lack of understanding of the actuarial models used by insurers to assess firms’ insurance risk.” It finds that BME firms are more likely to undertake work in immigration and crime than the wider profession, and less likely to undertake work in probate, wills and trusts. Immigration work made up a higher proportion of BME firms’ total gross fee income (21%), than the wider profession (3%). BME firms are more likely to identify themselves as High Street firms (68%, compared to 53% of the wider profession) and based in Greater London (50%, compared to 18% of the wider profession). “BME firms were also more likely to have a foreign sounding name (42%, compared to 3% of the wider profession).”

Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson says: “We are particularly concerned by indications of different treatment of BME-owned firms. This is an issue where we are taking urgent steps to clarify and resolve the matter.” Accordingly an action plan has been drawn up with five key stages. Firstly, solicitors will be asked to send information about their experience of the PII renewal round if they believe they have been discriminated against in some way. Secondly, there will be urgent discussions with the Association of British Insurers about the ways in which BME solicitors appear to have been disadvantaged during the 2009 renewal round with a view to erasing that disadvantage this year. Then the formal advice of the Equality and Human Rights Commission will be sought further to earlier informal discussions, followed by a review of the way that insurers assess risk. Finally there will be discussions with the SRA about steps it can take with Qualifying Insurers to eradicate discrimination.

The full text of “Professional indemnity insurance survey; 2009-10 renewal” can be found at:-

http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/new/documents/2010/pii_survey_april2010.pdf