Issue 241  23rd April 2022

Courts will continue working at full capacity to speed up justice as the cap on sitting days is lifted for another year, the government announced today (21 April 2022). The investment means more trials can take place, delivering swifter justice for victims and reducing the backlog of cases which rose significantly due to the pandemic. The same decision last year meant that nearly 17,000 more days were sat in the Crown Court than the year prior to the pandemic...

The Legal Aid Agency has refused to state how many lawyers have offered to provide back-up advocacy during the criminal bar's protest as solicitors prepare to discuss the next stage of their response. With hundreds of criminal barristers withdrawing a longstanding goodwill gesture to pick up cases ‘returned’ by a barrister unable to cover it due to a diary clash, the agency has set up a helpline for providers needing to secure alternative representation. It is widely seen as a bid to undermine the criminal bar’s action. Providers with higher court advocates have also been invited to register their interest in Crown court work. Several practitioners publicly declined...

The LAA confirmed that the helpline is up and running but said the Gazette would need to submit a freedom of information request to find out how many higher court advocates had come forward.

A £1m campaign to recruit 4,000 magistrates has attracted 34,524 expressions of interest, the government has revealed. The Ministry of Justice announced in January that it wanted to boost magistracy numbers to help tackle the court backlog and attract people from a wide range of backgrounds. There are currently 13,177 magistrates in England and Wales. The campaign included an advertisement designed to encourage listeners across Capital Xtra, Radio X, Heart and LBC in which radio presenters Remel London and Will Njobvu try to figure out who the real magistrate is among a group of six everyday people.

Responding to a written parliamentary question from shadow courts minister Alex Cunningham this week, justice minister James Cartlidge said 33,580 people have expressed interest so far as a result of the campaign. The Ministry of Justice has since confirmed to the Gazette that the latest figure is 34,524. A quarter of interested individuals are black, Asian or minority ethnic. Of the 93% expressions of interest that provided full demographic data, 24% are under 40.

A court has formally approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the US on espionage charges, in what will ultimately be a decision for the UK home secretary, Priti Patel. The Wikileaks co-founder, who has the right of appeal, appeared by videolink during the Westminster magistrates court hearing, which one of his barristers described as a “brief but significant moment in the case”.

Mark Summers QC, for Assange, told the chief magistrate that he had no option but to send the case to the home secretary. It was not open, at this point, for Assange’s team to raise fresh evidence but there had been “fresh developments”, he added. Summers said “serious submissions” would be made to the home secretary regarding “sentencing and other matters”.

The brief hearing was taking place after the supreme court last month refused Assange’s appeal against his extradition. He had sought to challenge a judgment by the high court in December that ruled he could be extradited after assurances from the US authorities with regard to his prison conditions there. An extradition order was issued by the chief magistrate, Paul Goldspring, during the seven-minute hearing.

Climate protest group Insulate Britain has declared Britain’s courts “a site of non-violent civil resistance”, saying the UK legal system no longer has any legitimacy. Activists facing charges may refuse to attend hearings, or if they do appear may refuse to co-operate with lawyers, judges and magistrates...

Rapists are being caught by fast track DNA technology that can provide forensic matches within two hours before suspects have to be released from police custody. The Met is among police forces trialling the technology, which is so fast that it links suspects to a crime or even previous offences before they have to be released after 24 hours into the community, where they could reoffend. It has already been used to match suspects with unsolved “historic” sex assaults by cross-referencing their samples against the police DNA database, so helping to take serial rapists off the streets. The technology - also trialled in Lancashire and Nottinghamshire - will be critical in reducing delays that have plagued rape and sex assault cases as it could slash weeks off the time taken to complete forensic investigations.

Terrorism laws are to be strengthened to make it easier and quicker for convicted terrorists to be separated from the rest of the prison population, The Times has learnt. Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, is expected to accept a series of recommendations from the terrorism watchdog next week to stop prisons becoming breeding grounds for extremism. He is also expected to announce the creation of new offences to target acts of terrorism being committed in jails in England and Wales that are going unpunished at present.