Law reform charity JUSTICE is today [Friday 19/1/24] challenging an attempt by two of England’s largest police forces – West Midlands and Merseyside – to keep their Prevent referrals data secret. JUSTICE asked ten English police forces for anonymised figures on the ethnicity, age, and gender of the people they referred to the Prevent programme […]
Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill
January 9, 2024
In November 2023, the Supreme Court held in an unanimous decision that the Government’s previous Rwanda Memorandum of Understanding was unlawful for several reasons; most notably that it risked refoulement (asylum-seekers being directly/ indirectly returned to their home country before their asylum claim is properly considered) found in the Refugee Convention, Article 3 of the […]
Criminal Justice Bill
December 15, 2023
JUSTICE briefed MPs on the Criminal Justice Bill ahead of its second reading in the House of Commons. JUSTICE is concerned that the Bill, introduced on 14 November 2023, seeks to inappropriately treat legislation as a panacea for a range of socio-economic issues, rather than address their underlying causes. We consider that if enacted, the […]
Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill
December 8, 2023
JUSTICE, alongside the Immigration Lawyers Practitioners Association (‘ILPA’) and Freedom from Torture, briefed Parliamentarians on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill ahead of its Second Reading in the House of Commons. This follows the UK Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in November 2023, which found the existing Rwanda policy unlawful for several reasons, including […]
Investigatory arrangements following police use of force
November 22, 2023
On 24 September 2023, the Home Office announced a review of investigations after police use of force. The terms of reference for the review were published on 24 October 2024. The review arose in response to backlash over the Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) decision to charge a police officer with murder in connection with the […]
Court finds against Government in win for transparency, ruling fear of publicity is no justification for routine redaction of names, after successful JUSTICE intervention
November 17, 2023
Last week, the cross-party law reform charity JUSTICE intervened in the case of R (IA & others) v S/S Home Department & S/S Levelling up, Housing and Communities in the High Court. Today [17/11/23] the Court ruled against the Government and in line with JUSTICE’s submissions. In the case, the Government proposed to redact routinely […]
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill
On 25 September 2023, JUSTICE hosted a roundtable to discuss the recent Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. Chaired by former JUSTICE Scotland Chair, Shelagh McCall KC, the roundtable was attended by practitioners, academics, victim support organisations, researchers and policymakers, including representatives from the Scottish Government. The purpose of the roundtable was to discuss […]
Courts regularly not following the law when jailing people awaiting trial, new evidence finds
November 9, 2023
New data out today from the cross-party legal reform charity JUSTICE suggests magistrates’ courts’ may be sending thousands of people to prison to await trial without giving proper legal reasons for these decisions. One in five people in prison are being held awaiting trial or sentencing – up from one in nine in 2019. […]
R (IA & others) v Secretary of State (S/S) Home Department & S/S Levelling up, Housing and Communities (November 2023)
November 8, 2023
JUSTICE intervened in the case of R (IA & others) v S/S Home Department & S/S Levelling up, Housing and Communities, heard on 8 November 2023 in the High Court. JUSTICE intervened on a single issue in the case: the redaction of the names of ‘junior civil servants’ by the Government from documents disclosed in […]
Future Prison Population and Estate Capacity
October 31, 2023
In October 2023, JUSTICE submitted written evidence to the Justice Committee’s inquiry into Future prison population and estate capacity. Our submission outlined the current state of the prison system in numbers: a population of 88,225 as at 13 October 2023, just over 500 short of the “usable operational capacity” which then existed. That population is […]