Report to the People
3rd May 2004
Game Over for Players of the System
The
top speed of the giant tortoise is some 0.17 miles per hour. A
three-toed sloth has been clocked at 0.15mph, whereas the poor garden snail
struggles to reach 0.03 on the speedometer.
All
three, however, look like thoroughbred racehorses when compared to the pace at
which the criminal courts can deal with serious offences.
In
my 5 years (almost to the day) as an MSP, I have represented a number of
constituents whose efforts to get justice for themselves or their family have
dragged on far too long. Whether
down to disorganisation, bureaucracy or defendants and their cynical lawyers
playing the system for all its worth, these continual and prolonged delays can
be as upsetting as the crime itself.
I
know people who have worked themselves up into a terrible state at the prospect
of giving evidence in a court of law. “What
about coming face to face with my attacker?”
“What will the defence QC do to me under cross examination?”
And they go through this not once, or twice, but three or four times –
because when they turn up to do their duty and testify, there’s yet another
supposed hitch and yet another postponement.
I’ve
long said that we need to get the law back on the side of the decent majority
and a key blow in this fightback was landed in the Scottish Parliament last
week. MSPs voted to pass
legislation which will streamline High Court proceedings, giving victims,
witnesses and jurors a better deal.
The
Criminal Procedure Bill will make it less likely that witnesses will be forced
to go through the stress and inconvenience of making repeated, pointless, trips
to court by creating greater certainty about when a trial will start and
preventing unnecessary adjournments.
It
will also stop defendants who are out on bail halting their trials by, to use
the legal parlance, doing a runner. Now,
subject to certain safeguards, proceedings can continue in their absence.
Obstructive
witnesses are likewise going to find it harder to derail justice and, to make
sure case are prepared earlier and prepared better, preliminary hearings will
let judges asses both sides' state of readiness.
Justice
isn’t a game. It’s not about
scoring points off the other side, or dreaming up new ways to delay the
inevitable. But all too often the
criminal justice system is.
The
Scottish Parliament is determined – with legislation like this and the 2004
Vulnerable Witnesses Act – to make it game over for those who like to play the
system.
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