Matt Foot

Today’s @thetimes “Riel Karmy-Jones KC, the chairwoman of the Criminal Bar Association, said she did “not understand why this core data, which shows that the crown court case backlog in large parts of the country is coming down, was not shared with us, or the parliamentary select committee scrutinising the Courts and Tribunals Bill last week”. She added: “The debate about jury trials is of such generational importance, not only to the criminal justice system, but society as a whole. Yet for no explicable reason, this data, which may undermine government’s own projections, and was available on the date it was due for publication, appears to have been sat on for many weeks if not many months.” Karmy-Jones said that “at this crucial stage in negotiations relating to the bill, it is essential that everyone has absolute trust that they are being dealt a fair hand”, adding: “We rely on our government and our MPs to apply a transparent democratic process.” The association criticised ministers in their promotion of the bill for allegedly relying on an impact assessment that provided “no proper evidential foundation” and which included “assumptions — rather than data”.