A NEW British commission set up to look into alleged miscarriages of justice has had to deal with 41 new cases in its first week, it was announced yesterday.
The Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure, which was announced on the day the Birmingham Six were freed, recommended an independent authority to investigate suspected miscarriages of justice. As a result, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) was set up in January of this year. It will investigate such cases in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The CCRC cannot overturn a conviction or alter a sentence. Its role is to examine cases and identify those in which the original conviction may have been unsafe.
Cases can be referred by the CCRC to the Court of Appeal or other relevant courts in Northern Ireland.
The chairman of the CCRC, Sir Frederick Crawford, a former Vice-Chancellor of Aston University in England, said at a press briefing yesterday that the Criminal Cases Unit of the Home Office and the Northern Ireland Office, whose work is being taken over by the CCRC, had been dealing with two or three new cases every working day. This amounted to about 1,500 cases a year. On average, the documentation in each case amounted to 2,000 pages.
Some observers have wondered whether the statutory powers of the CCRC are adequate. Concerns have also been raised about the availability of legal aid and the code of practice relating to retention of materials by the police under the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act, 1996.
It is feared that materials could be destroyed by the police in instances where the CCRC has reached a decision not to refer a case back to the courts. Such materials would no longer be available for scrutiny in the event of improved forensic tests and techniques becoming available.
The 14 members of the CCRC have had little direct experience of investigating alleged miscarriages of justice, although a number of them are lawyers. Mr John Leckey, a Belfast coroner appointed to the CCRC, has presided over a number of inquests into deaths which have occurred in controversial circumstances in the North.