We mere mortals from the tent court on Great South Road in Papakura are yet again ahead of the judicial resourcefulness curve as plans to repurpose the local RSA into a new court are afoot. In keeping, really, with the ponderings of a former UK High Court judge telling The Times’ Crime and Justice Commission that pop-up courts could cut the case backlog and ‘line up community with justice’.
Judges of all types could sit in pubs, church halls and libraries to reconnect the justice system with local communities, under a proposal being considered by The Times Crime and Justice Commission.
Dame Anne Rafferty, a former Court of Appeal and High Court judge, said reform was needed to restore public faith in the criminal justice system.
She proposed that public buildings could be repurposed as courts to expand the settings for a range of hearings and make the legal process more accessible. “The community can embrace justice and justice can position itself locally, as it always did and should still do,” Rafferty said.
“Possible venues: library, church hall, school during the holidays, pub, disused newspaper building, supermarket with spare area. Look for buildings in daily use but with slack, or buildings just sitting there.”
The plan could be piloted with coroner’s inquests, she added, then be expanded to other forms of hearings.
During the pandemic, the Ministry of Justice set up temporary Nightingale courts to increase capacity and alleviate the pressure on courts and tribunals. Some remain in place but Rafferty said technology made it possible to be much more flexible about where cases are heard.
“This is the time to do it,” she said. “Covid has advanced IT massively and, more importantly, we are not troubled by vast amounts of documents having to be transported to the venue and locked up securely overnight. We use laptops and tablets.”
The local Women’s Institute could be encouraged to provide food for lawyers and families at the community courts, she said. Lunches could also be commissioned from local colleges offering catering courses. The plan could help deal with backlogs and reduce delays but this would be a “bonus point rather than the primary aim”, Rafferty said. “Lining up community with justice is the big sell”.
It would not be the first time that justice has been administered in the pub. A court of piepowders, described by the 18th-century jurist Sir William Blackstone as “the lowest and at the same time the most expeditious, court of justice known to the law of England”, sat at the Stag and Hounds in Bristol until 1870.
The proposal for “pop-up” courts comes with the backlog of crown court cases at a 23-year high. There are more than 67,000 cases awaiting a court date, more than double the number five years ago.
The sexual offences backlog has more than tripled since 2018 and more than 10,000 people are waiting for a trial. The rape case backlog is up nearly fivefold over the same period, hitting 2,786 at the end of last year.
In March it was announced that judges in England and Wales would prioritise the longest-delayed rape cases. Upwards of 180 alleged victims have faced more than two years of delays since their case first went to court which Lord Justice Edis, the senior presiding judge for England and Wales, said was a “serious stain” on the justice system. The average time taken for a rape trial with a bailed defendant to conclude after charge is currently about 18 months.
A growing number of barristers are walking away from criminal practice because of low crown prosecution fees and cuts to legal aid. Last year a record 756 “ready-to-start” criminal trials were adjourned on the day as no prosecution barrister was free, a 40-fold increase in four years. A total of 139 of these trials related to sexual offences. On Monday a murder trial was postponed because there was no judge.
The prisons crisis is also affecting the courts system. Last year, 713 ready-to-start trials were adjourned on the day because the defendant was “not produced by prisoner escort services”.
In January, the High Court warned that the legal aid system was “slowly coming apart at the seams”. Two judges ruled that the government acted “unlawfully and irrationally” when deciding not to implement a 15 per cent increase in legal aid payments for criminal law solicitors.
“Unless there are significant injections of funding in the relatively near future, any prediction along the lines that the system will arrive in due course at a point of collapse is not overly pessimistic,” Lord Justice Singh and Mr Justice Jay said.
The Times Crime and Justice Commission, a year-long inquiry, will gather evidence from across the criminal justice system and will draw up a blueprint for far-reaching reforms.