Change of PACE

The Home Office has established a fresh and fundamental review of PACE, Modernising Police Powers: Review of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The consultation paper (CP), issued on 14 March 2007, calls for suggestions on a great variety of topics. It is difficult to know whether the prospect should be viewed with optimism or pessimism. What is the agenda driving the review? Does it portend dismantling or weakening of basic PACE structures and systems or will it lead to useful improvements? Is the consultation exercise genuine or merely a cover for changes the Home Office has already decided on?

In his foreword, the Minister for Police and Security, Tony McNulty, having lauded the safeguards in the system, writes of “bureaucratic processes and over-complicated procedures in the application of these safeguards which do not serve the best interests of the police, or the criminal justice system or, importantly, those of the victim”. This sounds like mood