Criminal Appeal Act 1995: The Semantics of Jurisdiction

Abstract

This statute is informed by a certain history, which it will continue. The original statute setting up a Court of Criminal Appeal, the Criminal Appeal Act 1907, was passed against great opposition from a number of senior judges,' in response to a number of high-profile miscarriage of justice cases. The Criminal Appeal Act 1995 has been enacted in response to similar events, although in this case with the direct approval of the Lord Chief Justice and other senior judges.2 The purpose of this note is to consider what there might be in this Act, if anything, which will substantially alter the practice of criminal appeals. In particular, what is likely to alter the perceived failure to remedy miscarriages of justice? It should be noted that in its recent judgments (prior to this Act) the 'new' Court of Appeal has already discounted the need for reform by adopting a 'different' attitude to that of the Court under the previous Lord Chief Justice.3 This note focuses on two aspects of the Act:4 first, the change in the grounds of appeal, which are reduced to the single requirement that the conviction is 'unsafe'; second, the transfer of the responsibility for considering the safety of a conviction and referring it to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) from the Home Secretary's C3 Division to a new body, the Criminal Cases Review Commission. We would argue that neither of these reforms of themselves will alter the practices of the Court of Appeal. With the new arrangements, as before, the important factor is the Court of Appeal's unstated (and unstateable) sense of appropriate practice.