Newsflash from the Private Prosecution Group

From the

Private Prosecution Group

Chambers of Jonathan Laidlaw QC

2 Hare Court

Temple

London

The Chambers of Jonathan Laidlaw QC is a leading set of barristers with significant experience in bringing, and defending, private prosecutions:

On Tuesday, 7^th July, Alison Levitt QC, (Private Prosecutors’ Association, Committee member) will give evidence before the House of Commons Justice Select Committee [JSC] inquiry on private prosecutions.

Oral evidence starts at 2:30pm and Alison’s session begins at 3:00pm.  You can access the live broadcast of proceedings by clicking on this link:

Parliament Live TV Link

By way of background, as a result of ‘the Post Office prosecutions’, the Criminal Cases Review Commission has written to the JSC asking it to conduct a formal review of “the circumstances and safeguards where an organisation is allowed … to act a prosecutor when it is also the victim and the investigator of an alleged offence” and the JSC has agreed.

Evidence will touch on important issues affecting access to justice at a time of chronic underfunding in the criminal justice system, including:

• The way in which large organisations conduct private prosecutions;
• The effectiveness of existing safeguards that regulate private prosecutions;
• Alternative legislative, legal and administrative safeguards that could be used to regulate the way in which large organisations use the right to bring private prosecutions;
• Whether the existing investigatory standards and duties of disclosure that apply to private prosecutions are effective;
• The effectiveness of different safeguards in preventing miscarriages of injustice [sic] resulting from the right to bring private prosecutions;
• The role of the Crown Prosecution Service in taking over private prosecutions;
• The role of the Attorney General in supervising private prosecutions;
• The role of the courts in private prosecutions; and
• The way in which private prosecutions are regulated in other jurisdictions.

We have submitted a response to the JSC’s call for written evidence which will be published in due course.

Please tune in and watch the proceedings live with us.