Friday, October 23, 2015

There Are Cracks Appearing In The Dam

I have had my say about the Courts' Charge, and I have heard more than enough recitals of the MoJ line about those who use the courts...nada nada nada, but yesterday's Times piece by Jenni Russell was especially persuasive.  (sorry Rupert, but I do have a sub to your organ)




I think that this will get sorted out. Grayling remains beneath contempt.


Gove must reverse this court charge scandal

Jenni Russell
Jenni Russell

The justice secretary knows that penalising those least able to pay is unfair and unworkable
Chris Grayling, the former justice secretary, came up with a brilliant wheeze earlier this year to help fund Britain’s courts at a time of budget cuts. His solution was to get criminals to pay substantial sums towards the running costs, with those contesting their charges paying the most. Since April everyone found guilty in a magistrates’ or crown court would be automatically charged £150-£1,200 on top of any fines, prosecution costs or victim surcharges, and regardless of ability to pay.
Perhaps it looked good on paper. The Ministry of Justice estimated that it would raise £95 million a year. In practice, a source tells me, it’s delivering “significantly less”. Courts deal overwhelmingly with people who are poor and who lead chaotic lives; the homeless, mentally ill, alcoholics and drug addicts, those on restricted benefits. Remarkably, these people turn out to provide a most unreliable income stream. The scheme is unworkable, illogical and patently unjust.
Two months ago a penniless asylum seeker appeared in court in Leicester, charged with defaulting on a mandatory court charge of £180. The Catch-22 was that, as an asylum seeker, he has no income and is not permitted to work. He has no legal way of raising money. Whatever he does in this situation — works, begs, steals or defaults — he will be breaking the law.
A sympathetic burger-van owner who occasionally fed the man was so moved by his case that he paid £60 towards it; he wrote to the court to say he couldn’t afford any more. The magistrate, Nigel Allcoat, was so appalled by the young man in front of him facing jail for a debt that he couldn’t legally pay that he volunteered to contribute himself. He was instantly suspended for his intervention and subsequently resigned in protest at the illogicality and inhumanity of what he was expected to enforce.
Magistrates around the country are doing the same, in an unprecedented revolt. More than 50 of these highly committed volunteers have already gone; more are wavering; 93 per cent object to the charge because they can’t adjust it to fit the circumstances. As one said to me: charging drug dealers, wife beaters, white-collar fraudsters? Fine. A poor person stealing food? That’s insane.
The insanity is evident everywhere. An Oxfordshire woman who stole a bottle of shampoo worth £2.39 was charged £35 costs and a £15 victim surcharge but £150 for the court charge. A homeless woman begging in a Warwickshire car park, a teenager who stole £5 of sweets, a newly released prisoner who needed to wash and stole a tube of shower gel, a hungry woman on restricted benefits who stole Mars bars worth 75p; all these have been given unpayable extra bills of £150, which is likely to see them back in court. The ministry expects 5 per cent of the money raised to be spent on jailing defaulters.
More than two thirds of magistrates say the charge is affecting sentences, often perversely. In an effort to restore justice, some are reluctantly discharging minor offenders just to avoid a disproportionate fine. Others are deciding not to award costs to the Crown Prosecution Service in order to make the charge more affordable.
This system is indefensible, and under the new, reformist justice secretary, Michael Gove, the ministry is privately willing to admit it. “This is a friendless policy. We can’t hit huge numbers of people with irrecoverable debts,” one senior source told me. A working group is looking at restoring discretion to the courts, so that wealthy criminals and the “truly wicked” are made to pay, but the hopeless and the naughty given another chance. Their biggest problem, though, is proving to an implacable Treasury that they have an alternative income stream to replace the notional one.
This summer Gove suggested that the country’s big law firms should help to subsidise legal aid. They were outraged. I think he could go further.
It’s the giant law firms who make vast amounts of money from the legal system. The charges of the top partners have doubled to more than £850 an hour over the past decade. In 2013 the revenue of the top 100 firms rose 8 per cent to 19.1 billion. These are the people who profit from smooth-running courts and can afford to pay. A 1 per cent annual levy on turnover would raise £190 million, twice the courts charge prediction.
Radical ideas such as this are being pressed on the ministry. “All revenue streams are being considered, however controversial or surprising,” I was told. They will be made public by the end of next month, to coincide with the Spending Review.
This government is already in trouble for undermining those who can least afford it with cuts to tax credits. Gove, who takes one-nation compassionate Conservatism seriously, believes that his ministry should operate on the principle that those with the broadest shoulders should carry the most weight. Grayling’s changes were patently unjust; if Gove can reverse them, he deserves to be backed.

17 comments:

  1. This is Dickensian. I'm in Australia, and lots is wrong with our legal system but I don't think it is as bad as this. Not yet, anyway. Most of our truly unforgivable nastiness is directed at asylum seekers who have tried to get here by boat - they don't get anywhere near a court at all on their remote island gulags.

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  2. One item from the article hit me regarding the working group looking at this ,
    "Their biggest problem, though, is proving to an implacable Treasury that they have an alternative income stream to replace the notional one."

    The reality is that the notional £95 million is a phantom, it will not materialise. The Treasury will be luck in my opinion to raise 10% of this figure and will have to replace it by some other means. A sugar tax perhaps?

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  3. Real example this week: man evaded paying a £2.30 rail fare. Case was dealt with in his absence ("surely they won't take me to court for £2.30") and the disposal was:
    Fine £440, Victim Surcharge: £44, Prosecution Costs £150, CCC £150. Total penalty=£784. Oh, and we awarded compensation to the rail company of... £2.30

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  4. But there is a potentially larger, if not alternative, income stream.

    For an immediate guilty plea we are routinely asked by the CPS for £85 in costs. We then take a view based on income. Does anyone seriously think the true cost is a mere £85?

    Let there be a better calculation of the basic true cost of bringing a prosecution, let the CPS ask for that and let the bench decide based on the defendant's means, how much they will pay. Those with the means could then pay a larger amount, as is the case for fines.

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    1. Non police courts (TV licensing, railway companies, DVLA) have no compunction about asking for realistic costs

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    2. Do costs notionally cover the cost of police operation, or are they awarded in consideration of CPS work alone?

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  5. All starting to fall apart for the courts charge! A Regret Motion was passed by the House of Lords on the 14th October and appears to force Mr Gove to re-look at whole matter of the Courts Charge


    Moved by Lord Beecham

    That this House regrets that the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 (Criminal Courts Charge) Regulations 2015 undermine the principle of judicial discretion, and add an artificial inducement to plead guilty; and further regrets that the Regulations were laid at a time that severely limited Parliamentary oversight, as well as making claims for savings that cannot be substantiated (SI 2015/796).

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    1. Lord Beecham as usual has it spot-on.

      In the 1960s the BMA got all GP members to submit undated, signed resignations as a bargaining chip during some negotiation or another. I can't remember the details, but I was told this tale at my father's knee. Now wouldn't that be a good idea for the MA to take up? Get all its members to submit undated resignations? Fat chance; I thought the BMA were a crowd of self serving, self interested hypocrites; but at least they were effective, self serving, self interested hypocrites. Unlike the MA.

      I am a former magistrate (resigned over CCC), former MA member, and former BMA member.
      I am running out of things to resign from. Maybe I should be less principled!

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    2. Don't even need undated resignations. All magistrates are volunteers and can be available to sit, or unavailable to sit. Imagine if all magistrates had to take a holiday on the same day or days and couldn't sit. The courts could not function.

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  6. ...The magistrate, Nigel Allcoat, was so appalled by the young man in front of him facing jail for a debt that he couldn’t legally pay that he volunteered to contribute himself. He was instantly suspended for his intervention and subsequently resigned in protest at the illogicality and inhumanity of what he was expected to enforce. Magistrates around the country are doing the same, in an unprecedented revolt. ...

    Now I can recall visiting this blog a few years ago, and having a short discussion with Bystander on the practicality of his byline that the job of magistrates was to enforce the law, no matter what their own views might be. I took the view that the corruption of legal principles which were obvious at that point spelled the death of principle, and any magistrate who valued the principles of justice for their own sake would be better advised to resign immediately, rather than wake up one morning to find themselves supporting oppression.

    The history of the last few years has not caused me to alter my opinion. But I see that it has done so for a few more magistrates...

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    1. Dodgy Geezer, you are absolutely right and we may expect to see the resignation of more magistrates who do not agree with enforcing what they perceive as an unfair penalty.

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    2. My original concern was not one of unfairness, but rather one of principle. I noted the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which allowed double jeopardy and hearsay in 'the interests of justice' - that is, when convenient to the establishment.

      An administration (and here I am talking about the MoJ civil servants rather than the temporary politicians who sit 'above' them and take the flak for their policies) that is willing to breach fundamental judicial principles for a short-term expediency is one that will happily follow a path to outright oppression. We already have ample examples of the application of 'terrorism'-justified legislation to everyday instances...

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  7. BS, the sympathy that you show for criminals is never ending...

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    1. If you are certain that this is not an additional duress to so plead.

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  8. I was summoned to a court this summer, and represented myself; The first time I've entered a court in my 50 years. From this single experience of the magistrates court system, I would say that the best way for the Justice department to save money would be to scrap the magistrates and replace them with the Chief Constable of the county concerned. It would make little difference to the outcome or the impartiality of the judgment!

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    1. Oh you poor baby. Did it not go your way? How did the appeal go?

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  9. The RSPCA always run prosecutions as if they were in a civil case over a squillion pounds and ask for ridiculous sums from people who are living hand-to-mouth as it is. The animal which benefits most is that subset of the human animal which has been called to the Bar.

    As for the infamous Charge: At the last Bank Holiday court my Bench gave absolute discharges to people who had been banged up since Saturday where formerly a fine deemed served would have met the justice of the case. Ministers will see sense and do the right thing for the wrong reason when they see the money not rolling in!

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