Governing principles

With the conference season in full swing, Grania Langdon-Down runs the rule over each party's views on legal issues ranging from the criminal justice system to legal aid and drugs

Law and order has dominated party conferences over previous years.

As this year's conference season draws to a close, how has the legal agenda fared at a time when Iraq, private finance initiatives (PFIs) and A-level re-marking have grabbed the headlines? What ideas have been floated and what battle lines have been drawn?

Conference is a time for debating the big issues, not concentrating on the specific details of proposed changes.

For Labour, that means pushing its plans to 'rebalance' the criminal justice system in favour of victims and announcing a tightening of the registration of sex offenders.

For the Conservatives, it is a new drugs policy and a new offence of driving while under the influence of drugs, while for the Liberal Democrats, it is replacing the Lord Chancellor's Department with a Ministry of Justice and giving victims a greater say.

Certainly the home affairs and legal affairs spokesmen for the three parties do not feel their areas have been eclipsed.

Barrister Nick Hawkins, shadow spokesman for home affairs and the Lord Chancellor's Department, says: 'Criminal justice remains one of the core issues.

The media might have focused on Iraq, PFI and A-levels, but it only takes a few things to happen for the focus to shift back to the Home Office.'

For Lord Falconer of Thoroton QC, minister of state for criminal justice, the Labour conference reinforces the real concerns that people have about crime.

He accepts the legal profession is taking issue with some of the proposals in the Justice for All White Paper 'such as jury trials in intimidation cases, double jeopardy and previous convictions'.

But he maintains that the profession supports the overriding agenda of making the criminal justice system work more effectively.

'It is not a picture of opposition to the principles of what we are doing.

It is opposition to some of the details.'

In line with Home Secretary David Blunkett's more conciliatory tone at the recent solicitors annual conference (see [2002] Gazette, 3 October, 1), Lord Falconer adds: 'I think the problem is the system, is it not? If the system doesn't work efficiently, so there are long delays before cases come to trial, there are real opportunities for trials to drop through the net, so lawyers inevitably take the view "let's see if the system can provide a way out for my client other than a trial on the merits".

I am certainly not saying this is abuse of the system.'

He says it is a system where there is 'too much scope for technicality and too little focus on the merits of individual trials'.

Lord Falconer argues that this is not intended to be an attack on lawyers.

'Lawyers from all parts of the system - those employed by the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service], barristers, solicitors - all agree with the proposition that you need a more efficient system.

Defence lawyers as much as anyone don't want to be hanging around court with nothing happening.'

Another area of concern at the Labour conference was over domestic violence and the question of whether there needs to be a separate Bill to cover it.

'This seems to me to be a sensible proposal, though it needs to be talked through further,' the minister says.

Lawyers have come in for much criticism from Labour, and Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, says he hopes Lord Falconer's arrival at the Home Office will lead to a 'more tempered view' of the legal profession.

'My view is that most of the failure of the criminal justice system is not that people, once they get to court, escape because of weaknesses in the system.

It is because we don't deter the crime in the first place, and we don't catch the people in the second place.

Those are the greater evils.'

At the Liberal Democrat conference, delegates voted to create a Ministry of Justice, as well as voting to give victims a greater say in the treatment of offenders as part of a justice policy to help reduce reoffending.

For Mr Hughes, the focus has inevitably been on the Justice for All White Paper.

'The next big debate we are going to have is on legal aid and it will be about making sure that access to justice is restored at sufficient levels.'

On the Ministry of Justice, Mr Hughes, a barrister at 13 King's Bench Walk in London, says: 'Our view is that the whole of the administration of justice process starting from the Crown Prosecution Service should be a matter for an accountable politician, responsible for the demands of the service within Cabinet.'

He says that one problem at the moment is that there is no one fighting in a coherent way for the criminal justice system - both to put in bids for resources and to be accountable for policies to do with jury trials or how victims are looked after.

Mr Hughes adds: 'A justice ministry would pull together anything to do with the administration and prosecution of civil and criminal law, while all issues to do with life sentences and tariffs would come out of the Home Office.'

Mr Hawkins says: 'An incoming Conservative government would look carefully at the split between the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department.

Some areas don't sit comfortably with the present division and neither has a terribly good track record when it comes to implementation of change, for example the introduction of CAFCASS [the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service].

'They also haven't created good relations between those at the sharp end of the profession and the government.

But I couldn't commit myself on the idea of a Ministry of Justice - for a lot of people that has become a sort of totem.'

When it comes to government proposals to change the way legal services are offered, Mr Hawkins says: 'There are fine words in the White Paper [In the Public Interest] but the devil will be in the detail.

My personal view is that the government will in the end either chose to shy away or be forced to shy away from an ultra-consumerist approach that anyone can come in and offer legal services.'

For Dominic Grieve, shadow spokesman on criminal justice, key issues for the conference have been stopping young people getting on the 'conveyor belt' to become young offenders, calls for a new offence of 'drug driving' and the Tories' new drugs policy, which is aimed at deterring under-age drug abuse by treating it as a health problem with a hugely expanded programme to help those hooked on hard drugs.

'That will affect lawyers only in so much as they might see a drop in some of their work,' he notes wryly.

When it comes to the Justice for All White Paper, Mr Grieve, a barrister at 1 Temple Gardens in London who specialises in health and safety, says: 'We have made it absolutely crystal clear that certain key areas are all about the reversal of the presumption of innocence and we are wholly opposed to that.

'While we accept that there is a deep anxiety over crime, the way to tackle it and reduce it is not going to happen at the court level- though there is a lot to be said for speeding up the time between arrest and appearing in court.'

Lawyers will be closely monitoring the progress of the White Papers when the new session of Parliament starts.

Mr Blunkett - who has the 'toughest job in government', according to Tony Blair - has already made it clear to delegates at the Law Society conference that he maintains lawyers 'have a moral responsibility to sustain the fabric of our society'.

However, Mr Hughes argues that while lawyers have a duty of integrity and a responsibility to the courts not to try to abuse the process, 'the greater responsibility is on politicians and those who set the rules than on those who practise them'.

Grania Langdon-Down is a freelance journalist