This headline court my eye as not only is it shocking it could at first sight spark further disgruntlement at the current legal system. People already view the legal system as unfair, in favour of the criminal and lacking uniformity, and this headline goes no way in changing people’s opinions.
The article I read stated that there has been a considerable increase in the number of crown court cases which have been stopped and restarted due to administrative problems. This statistic was taken in the last three years, and the data has been collected by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
For those of you who have not heard of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism I will give you a brief run down about who they are and what they do. The Bureau was established in April 2010, and was the first of its kind in the UK and is an independent not-for-profit organisation, and is of public benefit. They undertake research into the governance and influence of private, public and third sector organisations. All of the work they undertake is freely available under a Creative Commons Licence. It was formed on the assumption that investigative journalism is indispensable to democracy, with the aim of providing the public with the knowledge and understanding about the way in which important institutions in our society operate. This allows them to be informed citizens. The Bureau is based at City University London, and works in collaboration with other groups (BBC Panorama, BBC Newsnight, Channel 4 Dispatches, The Independent, The Sunday Times, to name a few) to to get its investigations published and distributed.
So we can see from the information above the The Bureau conduct important investigations, and I am going to do some wider reading on this topic and write a more in-depth analytical post on their findings and my own thoughts. it is clearly a worrying issue and one that needs considerable thought in order to ensure that justice is maintained and those people that are in need of the court services are not messed around etc. Plus the need to consider the budget cuts!
The Bureau published their findings here. Let me know your thoughts.
Rebecca x