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Time for change?

21 March 2025 / Jon Robins
Issue: 8109 / Categories: Opinion , Criminal , Profession
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The Law Commission has set out the case for radical reform of the criminal appeals process: is it enough? Jon Robins reports

‘Do you think judges are any less gullible than they used to be?’ The question was posed by the former MP Chris Mullin at an event to mark the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham Six in the House of Commons earlier this month. ‘The Court of Appeal used to consist of some of the most closed minds in the land,’ he added. As a journalist, he did much to expose the terrible injustice that, along with other Irish cases such as the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, shook the public’s faith in our justice system and led to fundamental reform of the justice system, including the creation of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

Appeals under review

I have argued before that if the CCRC does one job well, it is deflecting attention away from the problems elsewhere, including the Court of Appeal (see ‘Justice under review (Pt 2)’, 169

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NEWS
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
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