Justice on the front line

At my local magistrates’ court last week, as the world readied itself for an incoming pandemic, the first challenge facing court users was to how to find their way into the court building. Black and yellow ‘hazard warning’ tape barred entry via the main doors, instead the only way in was through one of two outdoors which had affixed a tatty ‘PUSH TO OPEN’; suggesting, perhaps, an apt metaphor for the state of access to justice.

After almost a decade of austerity, how could our impoverished criminal courts possibly cope with the Coronavirus outbreak? The picture is changing on an almost daily basis. Last week the Lord Chief Justice said no new trial should start in the Crown Court unless the case is expected to be shorter than three days, a few days later all jury trials were suspended. What about elsewhere in our courts? As