‘Nightingale Courts’ could get justice system back on track - The Yorkshire Post says

In just one tragic example, domestic abuse killings are reported to have more than doubled – with 14 women and two children killed in the first three weeks of lockdown.

It is in this context, combined with jury trials being halted since March, that leading barrister Richard Wright QC is calling for the creation of “Nightingale Courts” to start tackling the huge backlog of cases now building up in the justice system. Mr Wright, leader of the North Eastern Circuit, said the Ministry of Justice should “take a leaf out of the NHS’s book” and look to utilise empty buildings, especially those already in public ownership, for special socially distanced hearings.

There is precedent for adapting the legal system to a national emergency – during World War Two the number of jurors required was reduced from the usual 12 to just seven, except in cases of treason or murder.

Any similar reduction now would be the first in peacetime but with almost 40,000 outstanding criminal cases at the start of 2020 before coronavirus caused further problems, there is an urgent problem that needs to be tackled.

As Mr Wright aptly puts it: “Magna Carta declared ‘To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice’. Yet the current crisis denies and delays justice to the majority of the users of the courts; litigants, witnesses, victims, and defendants.”

As the country begins to adjust to its “new normal”, the centuries-old idea of providing justice to all must endure.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

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James Mitchinson

Editor