Thank you for signing this petition. Please help to promote it so that we stand a chance of making our justice system transparent and fair again. Please share this link with as many of your contacts as possible https://chng.it/hLL9XvzHgN

Did you know, that in English common law, the right of the accused to see the evidence against them was a long-established principle. This fundamental right ensured transparency and fairness in legal proceedings, allowing the accused to understand the case against them and mount an effective defence.

Overall, the right of the accused to access evidence and confront witnesses was crucial for ensuring a fair trial and protecting individual rights within the English legal system.

This right was effectively swept away by Act of Parliament in 1996, with the introduction of CPIA1996, the Disclosure Act. The Act sets out a timetable of disclosure, but crucially also limits the disclosure of evidence to only that which may assist the defence or the prosecution. 

The problem with this, is that the assessment of what to disclosure is made exclusively by the authorities bringing the prosecution. There is no practical way of challenging their assessment, and therefore no checks and balances on the fundamental right ensuring transparency and fairness in legal proceedings. In short, it is the reason why we are now seeing so many miscarriages of justice. 

Mistakes as to what evidence is relevant are routinely being made by prosecutors who are incentivised to obtain convictions, and who are already over burdened with heavy caseloads.

The Act makes it clear that the limitations on disclosure end when a verdict is delivered in a criminal trial. Thus there is nothing to prohibit full disclosure of evidence thereafter. On this basis, full disclosure should take place in every case where a defendant has maintained their innocence but has subsequently been found guilty. 

This would ensure defendants are able to review all the evidence held against them and identify any errors made in pre trial disclosure, prior to an appeal being heard. It would also ensure greater diligence by the authorities when making the assessment as to which evidence is selected for pre trial disclosure. Above all, it would ensure the fundamental right of transparency and fairness is accorded to all defendants who protest their innocence. 

If the ministry of Justices own statistics are to be believed, between 10 and 12% of those found guilty are actually innocent. That is a lot of lives ruined with the indelible stain of a wrongful conviction. Worse still it represents a large number of people who committed crimes and remain at liberty to commit more because someone who is innocent has been convicted in their place. Isn’t it time we did something to reduce this statistic to as near to zero as possible?

Please sign this petition now if you have not already done to, and pass it on to as many contacts as possible urging them to do the same. https://chng.it/hLL9XvzHgN