Summary Justice Research Articles

The new coercive control offence in NSW: (how) will it work?

ABSTRACT NSW has recently made using coercive and controlling behaviours in intimate partner relationships a criminal offence. The new offence commenced 1 July 2024. This paper considers the ‘purposes’ of the offence, analyses its provisions, and examines how it is likely to operate within the NSW criminal justice system. Our analysis raises two seemingly incompatible concerns. Firstly, we observe that ‘on the books’ the offence is overly complex and narrowly constructed and therefore may be hard to prove as a matter of law and fact. Infrequent use of the offence may result in it failing to achieve its intended goals of enhancing the criminal law’s broader response to domestic and family violence and saving lives. Secondly, there is a risk the offence will lead to increased criminalisation of already marginalised groups by reason of its potential to capture relatively low-level offending and the nature of summary justice – the jurisdiction in which the overwhelming majority of cases will be finalised.

The History of Violence in Scotland Reconsidered: The Culture, Filtering and Treatment of Assault in Police Courts, c. 1829–1900

While recent scholarly attention has focused on serious, indicatable violent crime in Scotland, this article considers the more common offence of lower-level assault that was dealt with summarily in police magistrate courts in the nineteenth century. It explores the role that police courts played in conceptualising, categorising and processing such violence, the role assault played in Scottish urban communities and the culture that surrounded it. The article also examines how magistrates dealt with assault and what this might suggest about the impact of the police and the courts on violent behavioural patterns. It argues that interpersonal violence had a more important, complex and nuanced role to play in Scottish urban communities than conclusions based on criminal indictments suggest. Assault was a disturbingly accepted facet of conflict resolution, a means of exerting authority and patriarchy in communities and households and an ever-present threat with which a sizeable percentage of the urban masses had to live. The article stresses that the boundaries between lower-level assault that was dealt with summarily and more serious (or ‘aggravated’) assault that was tried in a higher court on indictment were determined not just by the nature of violence wielded or the injury sustained, but by a raft of social, cultural and practical factors. Indeed, the rise of summary justice in the form of police courts helped to lower indictment rates for serious assault, as magistrates often dealt summarily with assaults that warranted a more serious charge. This is a point that historians need to bear in mind when considering what indictment rates for serious assault reveal about violence in Scotland more broadly.

When summary justice and procedural fairness collide justice

When summary justice and procedural fairness collide justice

Leggendo alcune recenti pubblicazioni in tema di clemenza per la ‘pacificazione’. Scene della giustizia di transizione del Novecento italiano in prospettiva

Leggendo alcune recenti pubblicazioni in tema di clemenza per la ‘pacificazione’. Scene della giustizia di transizione del Novecento italiano in prospettiva

Summary Justice in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Southwark (London)

The vast majority of people who encountered the law in eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century England did so at the summary level, the lowest rung of the criminal justice system. This article is an investigation of the proceedings at one magistrates’ court, Southwark Town Hall, in the City of London’s borough of Southwark from the 1770s to 1830s. Drawing in particular on the court’s two surviving case registers, as well as prison committal books, newspaper accounts of summary proceedings and parliamentary reports, this article considers how the nature and role of summary justice in Southwark evolved over this period. It focuses especially on two aspects of summary justice that have to date received less detailed attention from historians: the role that gender played in determining outcomes and the use of summary punishment.

Summary justice or the King's will? The first case of formal facial mutilation from Anglo-Saxon England

Intentional facial disfigurement is documented in archaeological contexts around the world. Here, the authors present the first archaeological evidence for intentional facial mutilation from Anglo-Saxon England—comprising the removal of the nose, upper lip and possible scalping—inflicted upon a young adult female. The injuries are consistent with documented punishments for female offenders. Although such mutilations do not appear in the written record until the tenth century AD, the instance reported here suggests that the practice may have emerged a century earlier. This case is examined in the context of a wider consideration of the motivations and significance of facial disfigurement in past societies.

People's Complaints and the Magistrate's Summary Justice in Local Society in the Late 19th Century Korea: An Analysis of the Book of the People's Complaints of the Yeonggwang County

People's Complaints and the Magistrate's Summary Justice in Local Society in the Late 19th Century Korea: An Analysis of the Book of the People's Complaints of the Yeonggwang County

Transforming Summary Justice: Modernisation in the Lower Criminal Courts. By Jenni Ward (London: Routledge, 2017, 164 pp. £93.99)

Following the 2007/8 financial crash, Her Majesties Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) was confronted with a challenge: to make cost savings and, at the same time, improve the quality of justice. This was the message in the Ministry of Justice (2012) report Swift and Sure Justice, as it called upon criminal justice services to ‘achieve better for less’ (p. 20). Since then, critics have raised concerns about the changes that are ongoing in the Magistrates courts of England and Wales, claiming that there has been a rise in morally questionable ‘DIY defence’ practices and that HMCTS has been making use of unfair ‘trial by Skype’ initiatives (see Doward and Dare 2016; Robins 2017). Jenni Ward’s book, Transforming Summary Justice: Modernisation in the Lower Criminal Courts, speaks to such contemporary, ongoing concerns. Ward identifies, and rightly so in my opinion, that there has been a lack of research conducted by independent, critical researchers into the delivery of justice in the lower courts. In being prompted by critics concerns regarding due process and in identifying a research gap, Ward set out to investigates the quality of summary justice in England and Wales.

Transforming probation services in Magistrates’ courts

This article presents findings from an exploratory study of court work in two English Magistrates’ courts which was conducted in 2017. The study involved two principal research methods: observation of the daily activities of court team members and semi-structured interviews with 21 members of the two teams, which took place towards the end of the research. The aim of this article is to provide an insight into contemporary probation work in Magistrates’ courts, in the wake of two major reform programmes: Transforming Rehabilitation and Transforming Summary Justice. The findings of this study raise questions about the contemporary relevance of the ‘narrative of decline’ that has featured in previous research and commentary on court work, and further suggests that – whilst it is early days – the creation of specialist court teams has not inevitably led to the ‘incorporation’ of probation workers into the dominant court culture.

Governing Hibernia: British Politicians and Ireland, 1800–1921, by K. Theodore Hoppen

This is a masterly study from a scholar who, over a fifty-year career, has securely established his claim to be regarded as one of the greatest historians of modern Ireland. This present book exhibits Hoppen’s characteristic strengths: witty and pellucid prose, careful but firm judgement and, above all, a vigorous analytical intelligence, which is simultaneously suspicious of airy theorising but unafraid of Big Ideas and their application. In fact, the central Big Idea of this compelling book is that, on the back of lengthy and bitter experience, British governments moved from the coercive application of ‘peculiarly Hibernian measures’ in the twenty years after about 1808, through a period in mid-century characterised by an essentially integrationist approach to the challenges of Ireland. After the mid-1860s, policy-makers shifted finally towards a process of differentiation which culminated logically in Home Rule and the grant of dominion status in 1921. The application of distinctive and coercive policies in the first decades of union failed, in Hoppen’s assessment, because, on the whole, the complexities of Ireland were bound with an indefatigable official and metropolitan ignorance of the island. Generally a measured judge, Hoppen combines summary justice with compelling detail in developing this case. Thus he argues that ‘British politicians in general ... seem almost to have gloried in their lack of interest in and knowledge of Irish affairs’: in particular Henry Addington ‘throughout his career seem to have possessed the attention span of a gnat when it came to Ireland’ (p. 34); Robert Peel, on assuming the office of Chief Secretary in 1812, found that Dublin Castle had no working library (p. 51); while Irish viceroys were consistently selected on the grounds of their wealth (and their concomitant ability to sustain the trappings of office) rather than for any symptoms of talent (p. 45). Assimilation or integration was pursued heroically (though not always consistently or well) for nearly half a century, but ultimately failed because, as Hoppen argues, from the mid-1860s ‘the whole character of the debate about how to secure a prosperous future for Ireland was beginning to change direction in response to sudden economic shocks, to more militant forms of nationalism in Ireland itself, and to ideological shifts among those who had thought most closely about how economic development might best be encouraged’ (p. 174).

The disparity between human rights policy and parliamentary practice in Australia: A Victorian case study

Over the past decade alcohol-related violence in and around licensed premises has given rise to significant legislative, regulatory and operational policing developments. In Australia, the State of Victoria introduced police-imposed banning notices as part of a range of provisions and new powers targeting alcohol-related disorderly behaviour. Banning notices exemplify a broader shift towards discretionary, pre-emptive, regulatory, summary justice which circumvents the criminal law, dilutes individual rights, and reconfigures expectations of balance in the administration of justice.The legal principles upon which banning notices are based and the way in which they were enacted by the Victorian Parliament challenge both the purpose and specific requirements of Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006. Detailed analysis of the application of the Charter compliance processes to the banning notice provisions point to a notable disparity between the expectations of formal human rights policy and the reality of substantive practice. The broader effect of such a disconnect is potentially significant, but has been largely opaque to meaningful scrutiny.

The Media as a Judicial and Police Resource

This article examines how media reports of police court trials played an important discursive role in the workings of summary justice and the emergence of the policed society in Scotland in the first half of the nineteenth century. It argues that the dominant messages that trial coverage conveyed were laden with middle-class social and cultural assumptions concerning the accessibility, usefulness and fairness of the courts, and the character and guilt of the accused. Above all, the reports spoke to the intrinsic value of lay magistrates as paternal agents of community conflict resolution and police courts and, more subtly, the police as firm but trustworthy levers of urban discipline.

Reforming the Role of Magistrates: Implications for Summary Justice inEngland andWales

The role of lay magistrates inEngland andWales has been progressively undermined by protracted processes of reform over the last two decades. Current government proposals aim to reorient and ‘strengthen’ their function through the creation of new magisterial responsibilities such as oversight of out of court disposals and greater involvement with local justice initiatives. This article argues that while these proposals embody necessary and important areas for reform, taken in isolation they will fail to consolidate the role of magistrates in summary justice unless they are enacted alongside other measures which aim to reaffirm the status of lay justices, and which seek to reverse the trend which has prioritised administrative efficiency at the expense of lay justice. Rapidly declining magistrate numbers together with continuous (and continuing) programs of court closures are irreconcilable with the future viability of a lay magistracy.

Transforming ‘Summary Justice’ Through Police-led Prosecution and ‘Virtual Courts’

The administration of ‘summary’ justice in the lower criminal courts in England and Wales is undergoing significant transformation. Broadly, this sits within the desire to create a modernized and more streamlined system. But, criminal justice scholars state ‘swift justice’ is not necessarily fair justice, and ‘procedural due process’ might be challenged by objectives of economics and speed. This paper centres on two areas of change—the expanded role of the police in prosecutorial decision making and the introduction of ‘virtual courts’ where accused defendants appear via video link from police stations to the criminal courts. It is argued these two alterations call into question fundamental principles of procedural due process.

Torture and Summary Justice in The Spanish Tragedy

Scholars have often described Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy as an indictment of Spanish cruelty. This article instead reads the play in relation to the English government's increased application of torture in the 1580s. Unknown to the common law tradition and controversial even in the period, torture appeared as the conceptual twin of another practice, the execution of summary justice in civilian contexts—an activity scrutinized in the play's Portuguese subplot. By having Hieronimo bite out his own tongue to escape torture, Kyd adapts his Senecan source material to portray defiant and public skepticism of these extralegal practices.

Summary Justice for Women : Stafford Borough, 1880-1905

Bien que les femmes ayant commis des infractions graves et les prostituées étaient des marginales à leur époque, elles ont fait l’objet d’une quantité disproportionnée de recherches universitaires. Au contraire, quoique toujours en situation d’infériorité par rapport aux hommes délinquants, les petites délinquantes femmes étaient plus nombreuses que les précédentes, mais largement ignorées des historiens et des criminologues, en particulier lorsqu’elles vivaient et agissaient en dehors de la métropole. Prenant le cas de la ville marchande à dominante ouvrière de Stafford, cet article cherche à réduire ce déséquilibre en décrivant la participation des femmes à une criminalité banale et moins ouvertement genrée, à la fin du XIXe siècle. Il montre par là qu’il y avait relativement peu de délinquants juvéniles mais de nombreuses femmes d’âge moyen, condamnées principalement pour ivresse ou désordres, coups et blessures, et violation de réglementations de plus en plus présentes.

A private‐sector, incentives‐based model for justice reinvestment

Research Summary Justice reinvestment is a recent strategy designed to reduce the use of incarceration and divert the savings to improve the circumstances of communities that have high incarceration rates. More than a dozen states have mounted justice reinvestment projects. While support for justice reinvestment remains high, actual results have been mixed. In particular, the “community reinvestment” aspect of justice reinvestment has been disappointing. An approach that focuses on the private sector and creates incentives for private justice reinvestment could resolve some of these current limitations of the method. Policy Summary Advocates for justice reinvestment would be able to address some of the problems in the approach by developing financial incentives that involve the private sector in justice reinvestment activity.

Summary trial – too summary?

On 21 July 2006, the government published Delivering Simple Speedy, Summary Justice (Department for Constitutional Affairs, 2006a Department for Constitutional Affairs 2006a , Delivering Simple, Speedy, Summary Justice www.dca.gov.uk/ publications/reports_reviews/delivery-simple-speedy.pdf accessed 17 March 2011 [Google Scholar]), which set out plans to improve the speed and effectiveness of the Magistrates’ court system. Lord Falconer, then Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor, wrote in the foreword that the government's vision was to deliver a criminal justice system that deals with cases ‘fairly but as quickly as possible’. This article suggests that, whilst efficiency is in everyone's interests, according undue priority to haste may have an adverse effect on the fairness of the trial process.

Law versus Medical Science: Competition between Legal and Biological Paternity in an Egyptian Civil Court

AbstractThe 1942 lawsuit that is translated, annotated and analyzed in this article raises questions about the judicial acceptability of new types of evidence developed by modern science. A husband who suspected that his wife was carrying the child of her lover asked the ahlī court of summary justice in Alexandria to determine the identity of the child's biological father by means of a blood-group test. The judge's refusal to comply with the request, on the grounds that he lacked jurisdiction, reflects a decision by Egyptian legislators and judges to leave the establishment of paternity to evidentiary rules that are shaped by cultural values about marriage, legitimacy and morality. These values do not always favor decision-making based on the full range of scientifically available facts.

The Ethiopian Red Terror Trials, ed. Kjetil Tronvoll, Charles Schaefer and Girmachew Alemu Aneme. Transitional Justice: Framing a Model for Eritrea, Daniel Rezene Mekonnen

In 1991, after 30 years of bitter fighting between Ethiopia and Eritrea over Eritrean secession efforts, rebel forces from both countries took control of their respective capitals. 11 They succeeded in ousting the military regime of Mengistu Hailemariam (the Derg ) 12 and obtaining Eritrea's independence from Ethiopia. Once secure in their areas of control, the new governments took separate decisions on how to deal with the legacies of their past. Ethiopia pursued trials of former Derg officials who had presided over brutal atrocities committed by the Stalinist regime in Ethiopia. Eritrea, meanwhile, administered its own summary justice against officials of the Derg caught within the Eritrean rebels’ occupation zone. Fast forward nearly two decades since the overthrow of Mengistu and Eritrea is again under the yoke of a homemade totalitarian and abusive regime that has committed numerous well-documented violations of international law against its citizens. While the books reviewed here deal with different issues, time frames and contexts, together they cover the constellation of abuses committed in the neighboring countries and the governments’ differing responses to these abuses.