Page 20 - When Things Go Wrong

II. THE FRAMEWORK FOR REFORM

The suggestion of a single Disaster Court to find the facts, make recommendations
and establish civil and criminal liability would be unworkable…Lord Justice
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Clarke.

The hole in the heart of these proceedings, the question about the British legal system
looming over every miserable day for the families, was why it allows and requires
this: established truths, determined by a jury on comprehensive evidence given on
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oath in front of a senior judge, erased and up for grabs again. David Conn.

2.1 Many of the problems outlined in Chapter I are products of inconsistency. In
coroners’ courts, which are funded and administered by local authorities,
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standards and practices vary greatly. Meanwhile, those tasked with
establishing and managing public inquiries have adopted markedly varied
approaches to important practical tasks such as sourcing venues, procuring the
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necessary infrastructure and appointing chairs. Although the Working Party
accepts that public inquiries require a degree of flexibility in order to address
the wide range of events that have caused (or are capable of causing) “public
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concern”, failure to capture and emulate best practice clearly comes at the
expense of both time and the public purse.

2.2 Further, whether a public inquiry is established to investigate a fatal event is
something of a political lottery, entirely dependent on the “very broad”
discretion enjoyed by a Minister. Yet the type of investigation opened has a
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27 Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Thames Safety Inquiry: Final Report by
Lord Justice Clarke (Cm 4558, 2000), para 13.25.
28 David Conn, ‘How David Duckenfield’s trial left Hillsborough families distraught again’ (The
Guardian, 28 November 2019).
29 HHJ Mark Lucraft QC, Report of the Chief Coroner to the Lord Chancellor, Fifth Annual Report:
2017-2018 (2018), see paras 15-16.
30 Select Committee on the Inquiries Act 2005, The Inquiries Act 2005: post-legislative scrutiny (HL
2013-14, 143), see paras 113-193.
31 Inquiries Act 2005, s. 1.
32 R (Marina Litvinenko) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWHC 194 (Admin)
[75] (Richards LJ).

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