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The Times
January 24 2000
Ministers 'hide facts' about courtroom bias
BY FRANCES GIBB, LEGAL EDITOR
THE Government will be accused today of suppressing research showing that magistrates treat black defendants less favourably than white.
The Bar is putting out a magazine as part of its attempts to kill off Jack Straw's "mark II" Bill on jury trials after his proposals were thrown out by the Lords. The Jury, to go to MPs and peers, will say that ministers have research from Leicester Magistrates' Court showing that 60 per cent of black defendants were remanded in custody compared with 40 per cent of white.
Last week the Lords defeated the Government's plans to end the right of 18,500 defendants a year to choose whether to be tried by judge and jury or by magistrates. The Home Secretary has pledged to reintroduce a Bill in the Commons. If the measure were again defeated in the Lords, it could be forced through, using the Parliament Act.
The Bar said: "We have seen preliminary findings from Leicester Magistrates' Court and we believe there is further data at the Home Office which supports the widely held fear that black people will be hardest hit by these proposals."
He predicted a fight over the reworked Bill "every bit as bloody as that in the Lords", adding: "There is concern about these proposals which is not just confined to opposition MPs and lawyers. Labour backbenchers are worried."
But ministers are citing more recent evidence which, they say, shows no difference in sentencing between black and white male defendants and a higher conviction rate for white defendants in magistrates' courts.
Opponents of the Bill, who range across the legal profession, say that the plans will nonetheless further dent confidence in the criminal justice system among ethnic minority communities.
David Pannick, QC, a human rights and public law specialist, said in a lecture last week that defendants facing serious charges would have to be tried by people they saw as "representatives of the Establishment" and, "rightly or wrongly, to be prejudiced against them or ignorant of their personal circumstances".
