Time to rethink courts?

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The Police & Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire is moaning about plans to close magistrates courts in Wakefield and Halifax with the 'business' transferred to Bradford:

“I disagree with these planned closures. Victims and witnesses come first, but by reducing the number of courts available you reduce their access to local justice.

“Going to court can be a difficult experience for victims and witnesses. If the courts in Calderdale and Wakefield close, where would a victim or witness local to those buildings go? A trip to Bradford, Leeds or Huddersfield could be expensive and time consuming and put people off going through the criminal justice system.

I rather get Mark's point. Expecting witnesses to spend time and money travelling across the county may put a few off (although most of the business of these courts is taken up with stuff that doesn't involve a lot of witnesses other than those from authorities - motoring offences, council tax non-payment, TV licensing and so forth). But the answer is to consider whether to rethink how we organise our courts.

Instead of travelling all the way to Bradford, why not set up video suites in local police stations, council offices or even a shop on the high street. And then use skype or similar for witnesses to present evidence. After this we can replace all the presenting of documents, all that rushing about to no real purpose that junior barristers do, and a whole load of process that clogs up the current system, with on-line systems. There's no real reason why we need to get three magistrates, a clerk, a policeman and the accused into one place just to decide on the evidence and issue (or not issue) a fine.

Finally there's no reason for courts to occupy expensive town centre property when huge savings will come from moving to a shed in a business estate on the edge of town. It sometimes seems that it's only the self-importance of judges and the game of civic willy-wagging that sustains us having courts in town centres doing a thoroughly inefficient job.

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The case against euthanasia...

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...is a practical argument not one wrapped up in specious argument about life's purpose or value. To allow euthanasia is to licence the killing of another human. And that person may be in such a pit of despair and mental anguish that the mutter those terrible words: "will someone rid me of this misery and end my life".

For all the agony of seeing someone's pain dragged out before the courts and in the columns of the newspapers as the seek the 'right' for someone else to kill them, there still is that problem. A risk eloquently put here by Chris:

A few months ago, curled up around the toilet bowl, chest sore from dry heaving for days on end and every single fibre in my muscle aching from low potassium levels, those words have left my lips. “I wish someone would put me out of my misery,” I moaned. As my intestines failed, so did my strength to bear the pain and indignity of nausea, constant vomiting, pain and the side effects of heavy medication to control my symptoms (and cause new ones). It is difficult for me to live with those words in retrospect, but they made sense at that very point. I understand, perhaps not the depth, but the kind of emotion that can lead us to wish for death.

Every day people who work with the elderly, with the mentally ill and with those suffering painful disability hear these words. And rather than a tidy little injection and an end to it, they give comfort, provide an ear of understanding. We can write a million words of justification for creating a rule allowing someone to kill another but we can never bring back a life ended on the justification of words cried out in anguish. And that is why the so-called 'right to die' is really just a 'right to kill'.

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You've gotta love lawyers!

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Kick an innocent man when he's down:

Hogan Lovells, the international law firm that acted for AB, is seeking nearly £500,000 costs from Mr Hunt including £80,000 AB spent on lawyers from other firms before Lovells took up the civil case.

The law firm had initially acted pro bono – free of charge – but after four months, in June 2008, switched to a "conditional fee arrangement" (CFA). This meant that although no fees would be charged to Mrs AB it could claim back its fees from Mr Hunt if he lost the case. The fees claimed would exclude the work carried out before the CFA came into effect.

The firm was voted runner-up for the 2010 Wig and Pen prize, awarded by London law societies, for its pro bono work on the Hunt case. 

So it wasn't pro bono after all - I guess Hogan Lovells will be handing back the prize?


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Welcome to the "Eric Illsley Defence"

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Some people really don’t get it do they? Here’s Eric Illsley on his trial, punishment and (brief) imprisonment for fraudulent expenses claims:

“My case shouldn’t have been brought before the court,” said Illsley. “There are so many others who have walked free and nobody is going to say a dickie bird about their situation.”

It seems that Mr Illsley believes that because some others – in his opinion – have “got away with” the same crime, he shouldn’t have been punished? Imagine the next of Barnsley’s burglars up in court:

“M’lud, I shouldn’t be in court because my mate Wayne is also a burglar and he hasn’t been charged.”

That would work now wouldn’t it?

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On the vexed matter of accountability...

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Hardly a day goes by without someone – usually a politician, journalist or quangocrat – uttering the word “accountability”. This could be in reference to spies, to the BBC, to family courts and to the actions of ministers. In all of this debate though we really don’t get to ask – let alone answer – the central question: what on earth do we mean by “accountability”?

So, in the interest of clarity and understanding, I thought I’d have a bash at defining accountability. And, as ever, it turns out to be harder that one might expect. Indeed, what many term “accountability” isn’t accountability at all but transparency. Take that family courts example:

“Measures to increase the public confidence in the family courts are being introduced in stages. The rule change in April 2009 allowed journalists to attend most family cases in county courts and the High Court, as well as family proceedings courts to which they already had access. However, the media were still only able to report the gist, rather than the substance, of proceedings they attended.”

Allowing reporting is not increasing accountability – it is welcome but does not “hold to account” in any substantive way, those charged with administering the family courts or those delivering “justice” in those courts.

In the case of the BBC we face a different aspect of ‘accountability as transparency”:

A cross-party committee of MPs has called for greater transparency regarding its executive and talent costs and accusing it of presenting some of its audience figures "in a somewhat cavalier manner".

Now the ‘committee of MPs’ do have a role in holding the BBC to account – although they have no direct power to act being limited to what they have done – publishing criticism. The BBC can – and does – ignore such actions so they cannot be seen to define “accountability” either.

And the same goes for spies – a committee of MPs meets privately and reports publicly on the activity of the security services. Again this is welcome transparency but does not really address the matter of accountability. In a democracy, public bodies are accountable (or should be) to the democratically elected government – to ministers. And it is ministers who are accountable.

All good so far. But this is “democratic accountability” – a particular flavour of accountability. Is that the only form of accountability? Or can we begin to see a different, less corruptible form of accountability emerge? Accountability to the consumer. Let me explain.

We live in a mature consumer society and most of us are informed and confident enough to challenge businesses providing poor service or a bad product. And in doing so we want some reparation – we hold the business to account for its failure to give us what we require. Businesses operating in competitive markets know that persistent service or product failures threaten the sustainability of the business and will act to reduce the number or impact of these failures. The business is very aware that the consumer can go elsewhere.

In the case of government supplied goods and services, this consumer accountability is moderated by the fact that, in most cases, the consumer is not the customer. The customer for, let’s say, the issuing of passports isn’t the individual wanting a passport but whoever holds the power to issue the contract to the passport agency. I cannot hold the passport agency to account (by, for example, purchasing that service from a different supplier) and rely on the long, complicated and deniable chain of accountability up through the Home Office to a minister.

We can see that the same circumstances apply in almost every case (although accountability may be to a council leader or police chief rather than a minister). Since I have no choice in who I get the service from, I am unable to use my ability as a consumer to ensure that the provider is accountable for service or product failure.

There is absolutely no reason why a whole range of government products and services – issuing passports and driving licenses, administering the vast array of benefits and tax credits, schools, hospitals, student loans and grants – cannot be delivered in a competitive market. The impact of creating such a competitive environment would be to drive down the cost of providing the services - a direct benefit to us as consumers and as taxpayers.

Indeed, any public service delivered to us an individual users could be considered for such an approach. And in doing this we would apply to government the power that consumers have to hold business to account.

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