Abstract
Abstract Well before the Criminal Justice Act 1993 reached the statute book fresh legislation under the rubric of law and order was taking shape. Early in the decade both ministers and officials had anticipated that the successor to the 1991 Act would be legislation arising out of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice set up immediately after the acknowledgement of the wrongful convictions of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. During the Commission’s lifetime the likelihood of this happening was first diluted and then submerged by a sea change in the climate of public opinion. Reforms in the criminal process aimed at reducing the possibilities for miscarriages of justice in the future were no longer seen as the most urgent priority. While Lord Runciman and the members of his Commission were investigating with great diligence the faults in the structure and operation of the legal system which had permitted such manifestly unlawful outcomes,1 the public perception that crime was getting worse and criminals were getting away with their misdeeds interacted with other factors in determining the political weather.
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