Introduction: Justice and Efficiency? The Royal Commission on Criminal Justice

Abstract

The Royal Commission on Criminal Justice was announced by the then Home Secretary Kenneth Baker in March 1991 the day of the release of the Irishmen known as the Birmingham Six after sixteen years of wrongful imprisonment. In the decade since the previous Royal Commission on criminal justice matters, a string of miscarriages many long suspected had been publicly acknowledged. The expectation was widespread that the Commission would produce a fundamental reappraisal of the structures of criminal justice in England and Wales, focused on the need to avoid further convictions of the innocent. The major problems to be addressed were those associated with wrongful convictions: false confessions, failures by the police and prosecution to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defence, partisan interpretation and reporting of forensic evidence, and an appeal structure reluctant to reopen cases and loath to admit mistakes.' The legal correspondent for the Times was even mooting the possibility that pressure on the Government would force them to make a number of fundamental changes in this direction, even before the Commission reported.2 These included introducing changes to the Criminal Appeals Act to compel fresh evidence cases to be retried by a jury rather than considered by the Court of Appeal, the introduction of a corroboration requirement for confession evidence, strengthening the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) codes of practice, stricter rules on prosecution disclosure, and a new, independent forensic science service. Kenneth Baker, in announcing the Commission, had stressed the need to address the issues raised by the Birmingham Six and minimize the possibility of other miscarriages? Though the prospect of 'tough' measures was noted in some publications, understandably, the media focused on the context of miscarriages rather than the detail of the terms of reference.4