31 January 201922 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Minor offences may stay secret after legal challenge fails

source: The Guardian Law
published: 30 January 2019

People given police cautions or reprimands as children or those convicted of multiple minor offences may not have to disclose them in future after the government lost a legal challenge to the criminal record checks system.

In a complex ruling on four separate cases, the supreme court rejected three of the appeals by the Home Office over the issue of whether those who were found guilty of lesser offences or cautions need to disclose them when seeking employment involving contact with children and vulnerable adults.

30 November 201822 December 2022 4WardEverUK

The cuts that broke the justice system

source: Politics.co.uk
published: 26 November 2018

Leaking roofs, seats held together with gaffer tape, flooded toilets, broken heating and broken plug sockets. If our hospitals or schools looked like this, there’d be a public outcry. But these are our courts, so no-one really cares.

The cuts to criminal justice have become visible in the furniture of the court system, but they go much further than that. They are eroding the basic principles it operates under.

Next year, legal aid reaches its 70th birthday. It is a landmark principle that justice should be free to everyone, that publicly-funded legal advice should be available to those accused of a crime by the state.

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14 November 201822 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Silent marches continue to highlight Aboriginal deaths in custody

all credits: Green Left
published: 8 November 2018

About 50 people held a silent march through the beachside suburb of Manly on November 3 against Aboriginal deaths in custody.

Relatives of five victims of the racist criminal justice system who died in police or prison custody were present. These included the families of David Gundy, who died in 1989, TJ Hickey (2004), Mark Mason (2010), Eric Whittaker (2017) and Nathan Reynolds (2018).

Many Aboriginal and non-Indigenous supporters also attended the silent march, which was the eleventh of its kind organised by the Indigenous Social Justice Association (ISJA) in Sydney and regional New South Wales over recent months.