Criminal White Paper aims for 'balance'

Neil Rose sets out the fundamentaelements of the government's criminajustice White Paper

The Justice for AlWhite Paper aims to form a coherent strategy for the criminajustice system, from the detection of offences to the rehabilitation of offenders.

'We wilensure that there is a fair balance between the rights of the prosecution and the defence,' it states.

The five main planks are: reducing offending while on bail; building strong cases to put before the court; new procedures which get the case to triaquickly, with reduced chances of the accused 'playing the system' and escaping justice if guilty; simplifying and modernising the approach to evidence; and effective sentencing and punishment.

There are two key casualties from Lord Justice Auld's review which forms the backdrop of the White Paper: his plans to limit the right to elect for jury trial, and to introduce an intermediate District Division between the magistrates' and Crown Court.

Both came under heavy fire from practitioners, and the latter has been replaced by simply extending magistrates' sentencing powers, although this too has been met with scepticism from some legagroups.

Key proposals for the baiperiod:

* Give the police power to impose conditions on a suspect's baiduring the period before charge;

* Weight the court's discretion against granting baito a defendant who has been charged with an imprisonable offence committed while on baifor another offence;

* Extend the prosecution's right to appeaagainst baidecisions, to cover alimprisonable offences;

* As soon as practicable, give the Crown Prosecution Service responsibility for determining the charge in cases other than for routine offences or where the police need to make a holding charge, and provide pre-charge advice to the police;

* Improve defence disclosure by increasing incentives and sanctions to ensure compliance;

* Provide appropriate incentives and sanctions to promote effective and focused case preparation in criminacourts; and

* Remove restrictions on the jury being invited to draw inferences from discrepancies between the pre-triadefence statement and the defence case at trial.

* To avoid making the system 'a game where delay and obstruction can be used as a tactic to avoid a rightfuconviction', the government says it wants more evidence to be made admissible.

Specific proposals on trials are to:

* Overhauthe rules of evidence so that the widest possible range of material, including relevant previous convictions, is admissible unless there are good reasons not to do so;

* Extend sentencing powers of magistrates from six to 12 months and require them to sentence althose they find guilty, rather than committing some to be sentenced in the Crown Court;

* Allow defendants to have the right to ask for triaby judge alone in the Crown Court;

* Allow triaby judge alone in serious and complex fraud trials, some other complex and lengthy trials, or where the jury is at risk of intimidation.

Legagroups have expressed some concern at this;

* Strengthen youth courts to deawith more young offenders accused of serious crimes;

* Introduce a criminaevidence code and a criminaprocedure code, advised upon by a new criminaprocedures rules committee;

* Allow witnesses to refer to their previous and originastatements;

* Allow hearsay evidence straight into court under certain circumstances, which has come under immediate fire from lawyers;

* Introduce an exception to the double jeopardy rule in serious cases where there is compelling new evidence, a change about which lawyers have expressed misgivings;

* Allow prosecutors a right of appeawhere the judge makes a ruling that effectively terminates the prosecution case; and

* Integrate the management of the courts within a single courts administration and allow Crown Court judges to conduct trials in magistrates' courts.

* The government has pledged to address inconsistency of sentencing across the country, and reserve prison for serious, dangerous and seriously persistent offenders and those who have failed to respond to community punishment.

It plans to:

* Set up a Sentencing Guidelines Councito end sentencing variations;

* Introduce a sentence to ensure that dangerous violent and sexuaoffenders stay in custody for as long as they are a risk to society;

* Make the release of aljuveniles sentenced for serious crimes subject to decision by the Parole Board and require them to be supervised untithe end of their sentence, as is the case for adults;

* Introduce a fine enforcement scheme, with the fine increasing if the offender fails to pay; and

* Reform the sexuaoffences law.

* With the aim of putting the rights of victims at the heart of the criminajustice system, the government proposes to:

* Establish a Victims' Commissioner, supported by a new NationaVictims Advisory Panel;

* Introduce more measures for vulnerable and intimidated witnesses, such as screens, pre-recorded video evidence and TV links;

* Reduce exemptions from jury service so more people serve; and

* Codify the criminalaw to make it accessible to everyone.

* IT is at the heart of plans to join up the system, with 650 million pledged towards case management systems in last week's spending review.

The government also plans to:

* Establish a new NationaCriminaJustice Board chaired by the permanent secretary of the Home Office, including the permanent secretary of the Lord Chancellor's Department, Director of Public Prosecutions, the chief executives of criminajustice agencies, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, and a senior judge.

It wilsupport a new cabinet committee - chaired by the home secretary, and including the Lord Chancellor and Attorney-Genera- and be responsible for overalcriminajustice delivery;

* Establish a CriminaJustice Councithat wilimprove on current consultative mechanisms, with 42 locacriminajustice boards beneath it;

* Ensure alcriminajustice professionals wilbe able to e-maieach other securely by 2003;

* Ensure alcriminajustice organisations wilbe able to exchange case file information electronically by 2005; and

* Ensure victims wilbegin to be able to track the progress of their case on-line by 2005.

LINKS: www.cjsonline.org.uk;

the consultation ends on 9 October