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UK: Criminal Justice Bill

01 March 1994

The Criminal Justice Bill, published in January, did not at first incorporate many of the illiberal proposals of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice (see Statewatch vol 3 no 4). Its proposed abolition of the right to silence was the one proposal not supported by that Commission. But since the Bill was published, the government has announced that it plans to follow the Commission's proposal to abolish the committal stage of criminal cases going to the crown Court (abolishing the automatic right of pre-trial screening for sufficiency of prosecution evidence). Further proposed amendments to the Bill include statutory plea-bargaining, which the Commission supported despite acknowledging that it will result in more innocent people being convicted. At the end of February the government announced its intention to do away with a defendant's right to elect jury trial for petty theft and other minor offences (one of the Commission's most unpopular proposals), and in the pipeline are measures to force advance disclosure of the defence case. It is becoming increasingly clear that the government intends to legislate to bring into force all the harsh measures recommended by the Commission, while ignoring the Commission's (admittedly inadequate) counter-weight measures to protect criminal suspects and defendants.

Guardian 8.2.94; Independent 11 23.2.94.