The Lord Chief Justice called for judges, magistrates, court staff and civil servants to engage with others and be open to change.
Phil Bowen
Last night, I had the great privilege of putting questions to the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd at an event hosted by us, nef and the Criminal Justice Alliance. It's a bit like having the opportunity of cross-examining that university lecturer you had who has the brain not just of a couple of planets but a few interstellar constellations as well. Nervous doesn't quite capture it.
The Lord Chief Justice had graciously agreed to offer his views on our work on better courts and to set out his thoughts on the future of the lower criminal courts. This is an issue of growing political concern. At a time of what he described as the 'retrenchment of the state', questions are being asked about how we can do justice differently. Two things leaped out to me from his opening remarks: firstly, that innovation and change is imperative, not just because of the implications of the comprehensive spending review for the justice system in general but also, as he acknowledged, we are not delivering a good enough system to redress victim and community concerns about low-level crime. Secondly, he was humble before the task ahead. He did not know the solutions and looked to a variety of sources, including the independent research we conduct, to look at and evaluate new and promising practice. It was only in participating in that kind of work that better and cheaper ways of doing justice can be tested and refined before going to scale.
In the conversation, and public question and answer session after, Lord Thomas made clear that he saw the need to rethink how our justice system works and that just carrying on as we are because it is what we have always done is no longer a sufficient reason to prevent change. It was also plain that he wants to take a rigorous approach to the change that is advocated for: simply put, does it work and is it cost effective? If it is, then it should be considered for wider implementation, even if it means changing long established practices. Moreover, I got a real sense that he saw dwindling resources as an opportunity to rethink how we do things: “cheaper does not have to be weaker”, as he put it.
What was heartening for us was his willingness to urge judges, magistrates, court staff and civil servants to engage with others—to preserve their independence, yes, but to listen, consider and act and be open to the new, while, for himself, he strenuously reserved his own right to cast a healthily sceptical eye over the evidence. It is that point which has stuck with me most: that we can’t go on as before and that this requires us to reinvent how we approach low level offending. In short, it was a call to innovate, a call for better courts.