GIVE AND TAKE

It is well known that the louder the noise emitted by politicians, especially those of a ruling party, the less important is the content of the announcement. Mathematicians would term it the law of inverse proportionality.  Well; surprise, surprise………without much fanfare and in just a few lines the Ministry of Justice has announced that in the year 2012-2013 £287.4 million was spent  in redundancy payments to all those surplus staff who were clogging up the justice system by their inefficiencies.  The Justice Ministry admitted that since taking office it has reduced staff levels by 10,000.  Oh!.... And whisper it quietly but the  self same ministry has spent over half a billion pounds on consultancy fees in that last accounting period of 2012-2013.   

The full report is here and the information above is buried deep within. 

MR MAGOO AND THE MAGISTRATES ASSOCIATION

On July 30^th I posted that Justice Minister Damian Green was to address a meeting the subject of which would be “Reforming the Role of Magistrates”.  Amongst my observations I wrote, “Of one thing we can be sure: this so called “event” will be for his purpose; not for ours”.  I won`t blow my trumpet at more than a whisper because anybody with half a deaf ear towards politicians in August would have come to a similar conclusion.

A couple of days ago he made that speech.  Amongst his comments were, ““However, four out of ten defendants sent to the crown court for sentencing received custodial sentences that could have been handed in the magistrates’ court - we need to look at why this is happening and if we need to do more to make the best use of magistrates. We need to keep the right cases in the right court if we are to have a modern justice system in a fair society.” On 7^th December 2010 I posted on former Justice Secretary Jack Straw`s  speech on exactly this subject.  It doesn`t require intervention from Damian Green or any other politician for this change to take place.  It merely requires advice from legal advisors who are sometimes afraid to deviate from the safe road of conservatism in not upsetting a preset apple cart.  My colleagues (especially those with some years service) could also be a little more assertive and not be reticent in using our existing powers to the maximum.  Of course the obvious change to make; a change which has been avoided for decades, is to remove a defendant`s right to choose mode of trial in either way cases.  Some effort has been made in this direction with the recent new guidelines on “allocation”  but the bull must eventually be grabbed by the horns in the face of inevitable and illogical objections by lawyers.

With his remarks on single magistrates overseeing low level traffic offences and “low level” shoplifting  it is plain to see that the minister is less concerned with justice than he is with his preferred expedient solutions attempting to save  money offered to him by the same Whitehall advisors who gave us Capita plc to provide court interpreters amongst other wonderful innovations in court eg restricting the availability of court ushers so that legal advisors are up and down like jacks-in-the-box chasing all over the building for offenders, lawyers, witnesses and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all.  

It is quite clear that underlying this speech is the government`s desire to remove Justices of the Peace from the courtroom and put a rump magistracy out to graze in the fields rubber-stamping traffic offenders, overseeing out of court disposals by police and taking part in local schemes of rehabilitation and/or arbitration between victim and offender.

If those in the Magistrates Association charged with the interests of their members cannot see the writing on the wall now  they should join Mr Magoo  at the optician`s  and have their rose coloured spectacles surgically removed.

ROAD HOGS

We all know the phrase, “an accident waiting to happen” which generally means that an unpleasant or unnecessary event or events is highly predictable. At a time when many of the agencies providing input to the magistrates` courts are running on empty the last thing the government will want to see is an increase in the numbers coming to court to plead their case instead of taking their FPN (fixed penalty notice) like a man ought to do. This not quite the wild west where a man must do what a man must do. The idea of FPNs was and is to stop people clogging up the courts system pleading to minor offences. Indeed these FPNs assumed such numbers that the pendulum has, to sum extent, swung the other way owing to the not unexpected tendency of police to use them inappropriately. But, saith Grayling, thou shalt knoweth that thou shalt heed my words for come Friday August 16th in the year of Our Lord 2013 such FPNs shall result from traffic offences currently dealt with by summonses; namely driving without due care.

With reduced numbers of police cars patrolling the motorways of England and Wales those in the habit of eg hogging the middle lane when traffic levels are low or those seeking to allow their front bumpers to make illicit contact with the rear ends of those in front will be sent FPNs and a notice of penalty points for driving without due care. The evidence will likely be from patrolling police cars with video recording who won`t need to go to the time and trouble of stopping errant drivers or CCTV. All this is liable to increase the numbers who feel they are not guilty and will therefore opt to have their day in court mainly as unrepresented defendants. Of course time will tell but as in so many other recent initiatives this to me appears to be a quick fix to a problem which goes much deeper. Reduce the numbers of on the job police officers and sort the resulting problems as cheaply as possible.

As a matter of personal experience I recently drove about 600 miles on the motorways and A roads of the west and north west of Scotland and saw perhaps three times as many police patrols there than on 800 miles of recent motorway driving in England.

A LITTLE FED UP

Last month, two weeks after confirming an extra sitting, I turned up for that sitting to be told I had not been listed. Eventually a court was found where I could be of some use because it was admitted the back office had made another mistake and a colleague had been cancelled in error. At my next but one rota`d sitting upon my arrival at 9.20 a.m. the legal manager expressed surprise that I was there. My intended court had been cancelled the previous morning although I had been confirmed the day before that. I had received no phone call, text or e-mail. Speaking to colleagues it seems that at my court such errors are far from unusual.

Does the fact that our previous highly experienced judicial liaison officers who jumped ship before being pushed were replaced by lower graded staff in January 2012, have something to do with it? Is my court particularly inefficient? The proverbial optimist within me is beginning to feel a little fed up.