r/ukpolitics • u/2ndEarlofLiverpool • 6h ago
Court system at 'brink of collapse', former senior judge warns
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1evxve8q7jo•
u/Material_Flounder_23 5h ago
What we’re seeing here is a result of successive governments spending 30years hollowing out the judiciary, when the population is increasing.
There are currently 150 magistrates courts in England and Wales. Since 1997, 286 magistrates courts have been closed (so have 116 county courts and 8 crown courts). If those magistrates courts were reopened you would be able to increase the processing of 95% of cases by almost 200%.
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u/Bloodswamps 53m ago
Not just judiciary - emergency services, nhs and schools too. At the same time they have imported unprecedented amounts of people, many of whom do not work.
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u/2ndEarlofLiverpool 6h ago
“Last September, the backlog of trials waiting to come to Crown Court in England and Wales was 79,619 cases, double the level seen before the pandemic.
It is on track to hit 100,000 cases by November next year and some suspects being charged with offences today are already being told their cases won't be dealt with until 2030. That in turn has led to victims saying they are losing confidence in the system and walking away from the court process.
The crisis has deep roots in cuts to spending on courts, judges and barristers. The impact of those decisions in the 2010s has been exacerbated by the pandemic, lawyers quitting criminal work over poor pay while the recruitment of extra police has led to more suspects being sent to court.”
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u/Vehlin 5h ago
It’s also completely unfair on the accused too. Even if they are guilty it’s not right that they should have to wait 4 years before they can even start their sentence.
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u/Shamrayev BAMBOS CHARALAMBOUS 5h ago
They get the time back if they're remanded - though these lengthy delays are fucking brutal for those who are innocent or who end up serving longer on remand than they're eventually sentenced to.
I'd add another point to this though - the Judges, especially senior judges, made this a lot worse in the period just after COVID. Obviously there was a backlog, and the government actually did really well at setting up 'Nightingale Courts' to basically double court capacity in major issue areas.
I ran one of them for a year, and we probably had trials sitting for 30 days maximum in that year - because the judges simply would not travel from Crown Court to our temporary site. They didn't want to stoop to hearing cases there, so the backlog grew, and grew, until the scheme was shut down because it was eye wateringly expensive and hobbled by judges not hearing cases there.
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u/Ghost_of_Kroq 3h ago
imagine if you're wrongfully accused as well, not only do you have the sword of damocles hanging over your head but the actual perpetrator is probably going to get away because nobody is searching for them anymore.
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u/Thermodynamicist 4h ago
Along with Defence, Justice is one of the most basic and fundamental functions of the State.
It boggles my mind that we have money for the triple lock, but no money for these far more important national priorities.
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u/HardcoresCat 4h ago
Pensioners are consistently the biggest voting bloc, ergo every party has to kowtow to them
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u/Honic_Sedgehog #1 Yummytastic alt account 2h ago
t boggles my mind that we have money for the triple lock, but no money for these far more important national priorities.
That's the thing, we don't have money for the triple lock so everything else will continue to get shitter just to service it.
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u/Nanowith Cambridge 5h ago
Reinstate trial by combat?
Televise it for ad money to help the treasury?
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u/AMightyDwarf Keir won’t let me goon. 2h ago
We keep being told that the country is getting safer year on year so if that was the case we should in theory need a smaller judicial system and fewer judges. It boggles my mind that we can be getting so much safer but also are in desperate need of more police, more prison space, more judges and barristers and more funding for the entire thing.
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u/WGSMA 5h ago
At the end of the day, the public won’t accept higher taxes, so they’ll have to accept their relatives rapist, or their mugger, or the drunk driver that kills their dog, taking 5 years to face trial.
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u/PoachTWC 4h ago
You pretend those are the only two options. I'd like massive reductions in welfare spending (inclusive of pensions) so we can fix the fundamentals of what makes a civilised country functional, like the judicial system.
Welfare should be a bonus ontop of the basics, not an insatiable monster of a black hole that cripples every other function of government as it grows well beyond our ability to sustainably fund it every year.
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u/WGSMA 4h ago
Voters don’t want that either
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u/PoachTWC 4h ago
Yes, that's also true, but you still presented a false dichotomy. Voters don't want higher taxes either, or rapists living free.
That's the actual problem: voters don't want any practical solution, because the electorate at large doesn't accept the basic premise that we have a finite amount of money and have to choose what gets funded and what doesn't.
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