Many of the revelations about Common Platform come from Justice on Trial, a documentary recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In it, the lawyers revealed that as a group, they need to develop more than 100 workarounds to deal with Common Platform flaws, and that more are discovered every week. (The Justice Department says the number is closer to 14.) Funding: Funding is another major issue in the UK justice system, as the UK justice system has been severely underfunded in recent years and spending cuts have been made. Long ago, Sir James Mathew joked that justice in England is open to all – legal aid was introduced in 1949 to promote the rule of law, confirming Sir Disey`s idea that a fundamental concept of the rule of law is that all are equal before the law. regardless of rank; However, LASPO is not the same for everyone – Nobel laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz has called on lawyers to protect access to justice as austerity measures undermine the rule of law.39 Many who work in the British justice system believe it is in crisis. Members of the PCS union, whose courts use the Common Platform, were due to begin a week-long strike on September 10 against the new system, but it was postponed due to the Queen`s death. While fees in large law firms are now double the fees of the last decade, with an hourly rate of £850, and while it is not only senior lawyers who charge high fees (new lawyers charge up to £425),17 it is doubtful that extremely poor people will have access to justice without legal support. Instead, the government reduced the fees of publicly funded lawyers by 6% and 17.5%, respectively, prompting protests from more than 1,000 disgruntled lawyers outside parliament,18 while it is unclear whether legal claimants who are not eligible for legal aid will be able to pay the legal fees because they now have to visit the city`s expensive lawyers. The difference lies in how a process is performed. In an adversarial system, the judge or jury is completely neutral.
The judge may ask for clarification, but he or she does not intervene in the search for evidence or the questioning of witnesses. The prosecution and defence each present their case before the judge and jury, and the judge`s role is to ensure fairness between the two parties. The truth in a criminal case is established when the judge or jury decides that the defendant is not guilty or guilty beyond a doubt. In civil law, it depends on the weighting of probabilities. In an inquisitorial system, on the other hand, the judge plays a much more active role in the search for truth; He participates in the examination of witnesses and the preparation of evidence. Even in the standard of proof required, there is no difference between civil law and criminal law. A perceived disadvantage in an adversarial system is that the outcome may not be fair if the prosecution and defence are not equally aligned (for example, if one party has access to greater resources). On the other hand, the inquisitorial system may be more open to prejudice. More than £300 million was spent on the digital case management system, which was first launched in 2020. It is currently used in around 60% of courts in England and Wales, with further expansion planned for early next year. From the above discussion of inquisitorial and adversarial systems, you will have already seen that the use of judges and juries in the UK may be different from that in other countries around the world.
But there may be more differences than you think. Trial by a jury of peers is an old law and tradition in Britain. In the early Middle Ages, jury trials involved 12 reputable men who judged the crime, assumed the role of evidence, and decided on the evidence presented at trial. This was developed by Henry II in the 12th century and reiterated in the Magna Carta, which stipulated that no fine would be imposed for crimes “except by the affidavit of respected men of the neighborhood.” These different facets of the British legal system paint a broader picture: that of a country with great confidence in its institutions, so that its people are happy that Parliament, and not themselves, are declared sovereign and that the Constitution remains unwritten. But they also paint a picture of a country where legal authority figures are balanced by popular participation, whether it is the diminishing role of the judge in adversarial trials or the importance given to jurors. When given the choice to trust the expertise of a judge or the wisdom of the public, it is clear which British people prefer. Photo credits: big ben; Legal systems of the world map; Dorset Beach; Magna Carta; Hammer; Busy street in time-lapse; torn paper; Houses of Parliament. The lawyers raised a number of concerns about the common platform`s IT system – a cloud-based portal designed to allow judges, lawyers, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), law enforcement authorities and other bodies involved in court proceedings to access information and case results and record them on a single platform.
The backlog of systemic courts exacerbated by the pandemic and the 25% cut in the Justice Department`s budget are well documented – but the UK legal system now faces another major problem: problems with a new judicial IT system that results in the loss or complete alteration of important information and decisions about cases. This is just the beginning of a nightmarish journey through the criminal justice system.