Single Justice Procedure in the UK's court system

The Standard's court correspondent, Tristan Kirk, explains the current state of the Single Justice Procedure in the UK's court system

Transcript

00:00The fast-track courts process in England and Wales is utterly broken and the Labour Party

00:06is now dithering over whether to make any changes.

00:10In the middle of this scandal there are pensioners who are being convicted of not paying their

00:15household bills. There are vulnerable people taken to court, prosecuted when they were

00:22in crisis. There are people who frankly should not be in the courts but they are because

00:28of the way the justice system is delivered. This is the single justice procedure, a system

00:35that was invented in 2015 as a way of making justice cheaper and more efficient. But the

00:42standard has exposed the fact that this is a system which is built on speed and not fairness.

00:49Time after time people who are in incredibly difficult and tragic situations write into

00:56the courts to explain their situation and they are convicted all the same of not paying

01:02for a bill on their car or not settling their TV licence in time. We are talking about pensioners

01:09with dementia taken to court and convicted. We are talking about people who are in hospital,

01:16who are undergoing mental health care, who have just had a baby. Those are the people who

01:22are caught in the single justice procedure scandal. The Labour Party knows that the single

01:27justice procedure is fundamentally not working as intended. As long ago as March 2024, magistrates

01:35said themselves, this is broken, we need reform. There was a consultation between March and

01:41May 2025 to see what possible fixes there could be. But months have gone by and nothing has been

01:49done. Week after week pensioners are convicted in circumstances which are harsh and unjust.

01:56People in mental health crisis are taken to court when they fundamentally can't defend themselves.

02:04There are children who are put through the single justice procedure unlawfully. The list goes

02:10on and on. And Labour in its current iteration has not done anything so far to fix the problems.