Law: In brief (1)
01 January 1993
Women in the judiciary: A survey commissioned by the Bar Council and the Lord Chancellor's Department found widespread discrimination against women in the legal profession. Of the Lords of Appeal there are 10 men and no women; Lords Justices of Appeal: 26 men, 1 woman; High Court judges: 80 men, 3 women; Circuit judges: 451 men, 22 women; Recorders: 753 men, 42 women; Assistant recorders: 414 men, 46 women; District judges: 238 men, 16 women; Metropolitan stipendiary (full-time) magistrates: 43 men, 7 women; Provincial stipendiary magistrates: 25 men, 2 women. Of the 760 Queen's Counsel from whom the top law appointed are made, only 41 are women (5.4%) and only seven are black.
Times 25.11.92; Independent 25.11.92; House of Commons written answer 16.11.92.
Maguire Seven: The Maguire Seven were finally recognised as innocent in Sir John May's second report on their case. May proposed the setting up of a new independent justice body which would take the place of the Home Office in referring cases of alleged injustice to the Court of Appeal. Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke assented to the proposal.
(Guardian Independent 4.12.92).
Miscarriages of justice: A Liberty/NAPO list of 163 cases of miscarriage of justice, launched in November, revealed that 23% of the victims of injustice are black. One-third of the black prisoners in the dossier complained of police misconduct (Guardian 11.11.92). And a survey of crown courts conducted for the RCCJ revealed that police malpractice was serious enough to warrant disciplinary action in the equivalent of 100 cases a year, while in 400 a year evidence was excluded because of breaches by police of PACE or the Codes of Practice, or because of other serious police misbehaviour (Guardian 9.12.92). Another survey, by the Economic and Social Research Council,
Unravelling Criminal Justice, concluded that police ignore or marginalise evidence of innocence, and that their working practices routinely break the rules. The researchers also found that community consultative committees had been effectively co-opted to the police standpoint, and that the role of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in preventing miscarriages of justice was undermined by the "dominant position" of the police (Guardian 23.11.92).