News

Family justice record under attack

The UK’s family justice system is being mismanaged and neglected by the government, says High Court judge, Mr Justice Coleridge.

He launched the stinging attack in a speech to Resolution family lawyers at their annual conference last week, warning that the effects of family breakdown on the lives of ordinary people will be “as marked and as destructive as global warming” without fundamental reform. He urged policy-makers to “stop chipping away at the family justice system and trying to have it on the cheap” and accused the government of “doing very little and nothing like enough” to tackle the collapse of family life. “Delays are rife in every part of the system through lack of resources. And delay…exacerbates all the problems and compounds the stress,” he said. “Add to this outdated divorce laws, outdated law relating to unmarried couples and a legal aid system that is withering away and you have a family legal system that is increasing the strain on separating couples and their children.”

He urged the government to ensure that family breakdown and family justice top the political agenda and to face up to the need to reform the substantive law of divorceand the law relating to cohabitants.

Criminal unified contract launched

New 18-month contracts to provide criminal defence services across England and Wales from July are up for grabs by law firms. Changes have been made to the criminal unified contract after extensive consultation, and include: a new method for reconciling standard monthly payments; removal of the requirement to record travel costs and time regarding matters dealt with under fixed fees; and removal of automatic financial penalties for claims submitted more than three months late. The Legal Services Commission’s powers to amend the contract will also be limited. Plans to change the way duty solicitor slots are allocated have been scrapped as have proposals to introduce a new performance requirement for panel and back-up duty call acceptance; to introduce audit key performance indicators and re-accreditation of duty solicitors.

The new contract will be issued to the whole organisation taking on publicly funded criminal defence work rather than to individual offices. Current providers who do not apply cannot take on new publicly funded work from 14 July 2008.

LSC chief executive, Carolyn Regan, says: “I know criminal solicitors have been dealing with many changes recently and appreciate their continued dedication and hard work. We have done everything we can to make the application process as simple as possible.”

Stage set for UK plea negotiations

Plea negotiations in fraud trials may soon be introduced in England and Wales following the launch of a consultation on the issue by the attorney general.

A working party set up in March 2007 by then attorney general Lord Goldsmith and chaired by former Bar chairman, Stephen Hockman QC, has drawn up a draft framework for plea negotiation which, if introduced, will see prosecution and defence negotiating an agreed position to bring to the court: encompassing a guilty plea, agreed facts and recommended sentence. The judge would then be free to accept, amend or reject the agreement.

Subject to the consultation results, the draft framework is likely to form the basis of detailed guidelines issued to prosecutors by the attorney general.

The attorney general, Baroness Scotland, says the UK’s plea bargaining system will not be a replica of those practised in other jurisdictions like the US and Canada, but will be carefully designed to fit the English legal system: “Clearly the US system would not work within our own legal system, but I believe the framework could show us exactly how we might achieve early pleas and shorter, less expensive fraud trials.”

Hockman says the proposed changes are modest and evolutionary. “They are designed principally to encourage the prosecution and the defence to talk to each other at the earliest possible stage,” he says. ”They aim to facilitate the attainment of a transparent plea agreement for presentation to and consideration by the court, whose powers of disposal remain entirely unaffected.”