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UK: Right to silence

01 July 1992

The right to silence, one of the hallmarks of the criminal justice system, is under serious threat from the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice. The police have been trying to abolish the right for several years, on the ground that it gives an unfair advantage to criminals and induces police officers to bend the rules to secure convictions.

The right was abolished in Northern Ireland in 1988, in the middle of the trial of the Winchester Three (their conviction on terrorism conspiracy charges were quashed because of the way the announcement was made by the then Attorney-General).

Now all the signs are that the Royal Commission will propose the ending in mainland Britain of the right to silence - or at least its significant erosion by judicial comment on an accused's failure to account for themselves to the police. The Lord Chief Justice, Peter Taylor, in an interview in Law in Action on 26 June, indicated that there were problems with maintaining the right in all cases, and that in some cases the police felt it was only fair for judges to be able to comment. In this he dashed any hopes that observers might have had that his appointment marked a real and radical change in the attitude of the judiciary towards the protection of innocence in the criminal process.

If the Royal Commission makes such a proposal, it will be following the pattern set by its predecessors, all of which were set up in the wake of appalling miscarriages of justice, and all of which ended up by eroding suspects' rights further and granting the police ever more powers.