1 Background to this inquiry
The Royal Commission on Criminal
Justice and the CCRC
1. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) was
set up on the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Criminal
Justice. The Royal Commission was announced in response to political
pressure by the Home Secretary on the day in March 1991 that the
convictions of the Birmingham Six were quashed on appeal, with
terms of reference to look at the effectiveness and efficiency
of the criminal justice system as a whole. As the circumstances
of its creation were largely associated with a number of high-profile
miscarriages of justice, such as the Guildford Four and Maguire
Seven, the Royal Commission had a specific term of reference to
consider "whether changes are needed in: […] the arrangements
for considering and investigating allegations of miscarriages
of justice when appeal rights have been exhausted."[1]
2. In its Report, published in July 1993, the Royal
Commission concluded that the existing arrangements on this matter
were not working to a satisfactory standard. The only option for
a person maintaining their innocence after conviction, and if
unsuccessful on appeal, was to apply to the Criminal Case Unit
of C3 Division of the Home Office in the hope that, after investigation,
the Home Secretary would refer the case back to the Court of Appeal.
The Royal Commission noted that successive Home Secretaries had
been reluctant to refer cases, in part for fear that they would
be accused of interfering with the courts and that this could
be seen as constitutionally inappropriate. Therefore the Royal
Commission recommended that a new body should be set up, independent
of both the Government and the courts, to take over the task of
investigating alleged miscarriages of justice and, if appropriate,
referring them to the Court of Appeal. This body was established
by the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 (henceforth 'the 1995 Act') as
the CCRC and began operations in March 1997 to review potential
miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.[2]
3. Throughout this inquiry we have tried to gauge
what expectations were for the CCRC when it was first set up.
We have found that these initial expectations were as diverse
as the campaigners and groups that fought so tirelessly to have
it created. One strand of opinion was represented by Paul May,
a campaigner against miscarriages of justice, who said that what
they wanted was simply "something better than C3",[3]
while Dr Carole McCartney spoke of "dancing around the room
thinking, 'We have cracked miscarriages of justice because we
are going to learn what the causes are.'"[4]
Everyone who gave evidence to us said they had been optimistic
at the time about what the new body could achieve.
Our inquiry
4. Alongside the coming into force of the Public
Bodies Act 2011 the Government decided that all remaining non-departmental
public bodies should begin to undergo triennial reviews in order
to ensure that they were still required, both in function and
form, and complying with principles of good governance. The first
triennial review of the CCRC was published in June 2013, confirming
that the CCRC should be retained as a non-departmental public
body with no change to its functions.[5]
In January 2014 we took oral evidence from Richard Foster and
Karen Kneller, Chair and Chief Executive of the CCRC respectively,
in a one-off evidence session on that review and the work of the
CCRC.[6] They defended
the record of the CCRC in investigating and referring cases, although
they also told us that the Commission was being impeded in its
work by a lack of resources and funding. Without launching a general
call for evidence, we decided to seek comment and written submissions
from a small number of solicitors and academics with an interest
in, and in many cases critical of, the CCRC's work; responses
we received raised various concerns, including that the CCRC had
failed to remain truly independent of the Court of Appeal, that
it was failing to carry out investigations properly and proactively,
and that as a result of these weaknesses some miscarriages of
justice were going uncorrected.[7]
We wrote in June 2014 to the CCRC to share these comments and
invited them to respond to these criticisms, which they did.[8]
These submissions are all published on our web pages.
5. Upon receiving the CCRC's response we decided
that the concerns raised required more detailed scrutiny, and
so we launched an inquiry into the CCRC on 17 October 2014. We
invited evidence on all aspects of the work and effectiveness
of the CCRC, but in particular on the following points:
· Whether
the CCRC has fulfilled the expectations and remit which accompanied
it at its establishment following the 1993 Report of the Royal
Commission on Criminal Justice;
· Whether
the CCRC has in general appropriate and sufficient (i) statutory
powers and (ii) resources to carry out its functions effectively,
both in terms of investigating cases and in the wider role of
promoting confidence in the criminal justice system;
· Whether
the 'real possibility' test for reference of a case to the Court
of Appeal under section 13(1) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995
is appropriate and has been applied appropriately by the CCRC;
· Whether
any changes to the role, work and remit of the CCRC are needed
and, if so, what those changes should be.
While we accepted evidence describing individual
circumstances and individual grievances with the CCRC, we made
clear that we would not be investigating or adjudicating on any
individual cases.
6. We
have received some evidence highlighting the effects of both the
existing provisions regarding the admissibility of fresh evidence
to the Court of Appeal, which generally requires it not to have
been available at trial, and of the requirements necessary for
a victim of a miscarriage of justice to obtain compensation, under
which the person must prove beyond reasonable doubt that they
did not commit the offence. Both of these issues fall outside
the terms of reference of this inquiry, but it has been drawn
to our attention that there is widespread concern that they are
having an unjust effect. There may therefore be some benefit in
these being reviewed by our successor Committee in the next Parliament.
7. In the course of our inquiry we received 47 written
submissions and we held four oral evidence sessions, hearing from
Glyn Maddocks and Mark Newby, solicitors, Dr Dennis Eady, Case
Consultant, Cardiff University Law School Innocence Project, and
Dr Michael Naughton, Director, University of Bristol Innocence
Project; Professor Jacqueline Hodgson, University of Warwick School
of Law, Professor Carolyn Hoyle, Centre for Criminology, University
of Oxford, and Dr Carole McCartney, Northumbria University School
of Law; Lord Runciman, Chair, and Professor Michael Zander QC,
Member, Royal Commission on Criminal Justice; Paul May and Bob
Woffinden; Richard Foster, Chair, and Karen Kneller, Chief Executive,
CCRC; and Rt Hon Mike Penning MP, Minister of State for Policing,
Criminal Justice and Victims, and Stephen Muers, Director for
Sentencing and Rehabilitation, Ministry of Justice. Towards the
conclusion of the inquiry we received an offer from the former
Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, to give oral evidence; unfortunately
we were unable to take him up on his offer because of a lack of
available time, but he subsequently submitted written evidence
to the inquiry. We are grateful to all those who gave written
and oral evidence to us in this inquiry.
1 The Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, Report,
Cm 2263, July 1993, pp i-ii Back
2
An equivalent but separate body for Scotland, the Scottish Criminal
Cases Review Commission, was established two years later. Back
3
Q 79 Back
4
Q 36 Back
5
Ministry of Justice, Triennial Review of the Criminal Cases Review Commission,
June 2013 Back
6
Oral evidence taken by the Justice Committee on 14 January 2014,
HC (2013-14) 971 Back
7
Written evidence on the CCRC, February 2014 Back
8
Criminal Cases Review Commission, Written evidence on the CCRC,
June 2014 Back
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