The Process is the Rule and the Punishment is the Process
| Date | 01 March 1996 |
| Published date | 01 March 1996 |
| Author | Rod Morgan |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1996.tb02082.x |
REVIEW ARTICLE
The Process
is
the Rule
and
the Punishment
is
the
Process
Rod
Morgan”
Andrew Ashworth,
The Criminal Process: An Evaluative Study,
Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1994, 315 pp, hb 545.00, pb 512.95.
Andrew Sanders and Richard Young,
Criminal Justice,
London: Butterworths,
1994, 496pp, pb 518.95.
At the time
of
writing (spring 1995), the ground is being prepared for yet another
Criminal Justice Bill in the autumn. Among the issues the Bill will almost certainly
cover is the question of advance disclosure of evidence in criminal proceedings. Sir
Paul Condon, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, in a newspaper interview,
the account
of
which
he
subsequently claimed had misrepresented his views,’
is
reported to have said:
In
a
democracy there has
to
be
a critical mass of confidence in the criminal justice system
and
I
think we’re perilously
close
to
dangerous levels
of
lack of confidence in the system.
Why dangerous? Because:
If there isn’t confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system, then
it
is harder for
people like me
to
hold the line on ethical standards
. .
.
because street cops
see
what’s
happening
to
victims, they see villains escape time and time again from court hearings, and
that’s when you risk ‘noble cause corruption’
-
officers bending evidence
to
convict people
they are certain are guilty.
He went on to claim that the disclosure rules, which were ‘largely judge-made’
and, by implication, therefore not grounded on an understanding
as
to how crime is
effectively investigated, were being exploited by ‘major criminals and their
advisors
...
in
a way that just cannot be in the public interest. Over 100 major
cases have had to be dropped through disclosure rules,’ apparently to protect the
identity of informers.2
Sir Paul’s quarrel with the newspaper report of his views appears to have rested
entirely on the implied suggestion that because he ‘understood’
why
officers
engaged in rule-bending, he condoned ‘noble cause corruption’
-
an
implication
certainly drawn and condemned in an article by Michael Zande~-.~ Sir Paul
categorically denied that this was the case. But he withdrew none of his critique.
The ‘balance’ in criminal justice proceedings, he insisted, had swung too far in
favour of defendants and must now be rectified by means of legislation.
~~
*Department
of
Law, University
of
Bristol
1
2
3
BBC,
World
at
One,
14
March 1995.
The Guardian,
11
March 1995.
Zander, ‘Not Guilty
as
Charged,’
The Guardian,
13 March 1995.
See
also quotations in
The Observer,
12March 1995, attributed to Mr Chris Sallon
QC,
Chairman of the Bar’s Public Affairs Committee,
and Mr Richard Ferguson
QC,
Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, calling on Sir Paul Condon
to
resign because
of
his apparent justification
of
rule-bending.
0
The Modem Law Review Limited
1996
(MLR
59:2,
March). Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108
Cowley Road, Oxford
OX4
IJF
and
238
Main Street, Cambridge. MA
02142,
USA.
306
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