Criminal courts review (Auld report 2001)

The Auld Review was commissioned at the turn of the millennium to address a criminal justice system that many felt was fragmented, inefficient, and slow. Lord Justice Auld was tasked with looking at the system "from top to bottom," covering everything from the initial charge by the police to the final appeal in the House of Lords. The review arrived at a time when the government was desperate to reduce the "crushing" backlog of cases in the Crown Court.

Auld’s primary conclusion was that the division between the Magistrates’ Courts and the Crown Court was an archaic barrier to efficiency. He proposed a Unified Criminal Court, which would have three divisions: a Crown Division for the most serious crimes, a District Division (a new "middle tier") presided over by a judge sitting with at least two magistrates, and a Magistrates' Division for summary offences. This was intended to ensure that cases were heard at the most appropriate level of complexity and cost.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the report was Auld’s critique of the jury system. While acknowledging the jury as a "hallowed institution," he argued that it was not always the most effective way to achieve justice. He recommended that defendants should be able to opt for trial by judge alone and, most controversially, that the right to jury trial should be abolished for "either-way" offences (where a case could be heard in either court) and replaced by a system where the court decided the venue. He also suggested that serious fraud or complex financial cases should be tried by a judge and expert lay assessors rather than a jury, who might struggle with the technical evidence.

While not all of Auld’s "radical" proposals were implemented—particularly those involving the removal of jury rights, which faced fierce opposition from civil liberties groups—the report provided the intellectual framework for the Criminal Justice Act 2003. This Act introduced many of Auld's ideas, including the reform of the laws on double jeopardy, the introduction of "bad character" evidence, and the creation of a national Criminal Justice Board to oversee the system.