Posted: September 4th, 2015

“Critical evaluation of lawyers’ duty to use their best effort to guarantee success at the trial in light of obligations introduced by the Criminal Procedure Rules 2005 (now 2014)”

Topic: “Critical evaluation of lawyers’ duty to use their best effort to guarantee success at the trial in light of obligations introduced by the Criminal Procedure Rules 2005 (now 2014)”

Paper details:
the following is the gist of the whole dissertation. I would also like to be in touch with you frequently to be assisting/proof reading what you have written so far-I hope that is ok? I hope the following helps you understand the topic, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. A debate has emerged in the UK justice system around the duties of the defence lawyer, and the conflict that has been presented by the introduction of the Criminal Procedure Rules 2005 (CPR). One of the duties that a defence barrister has towards his/her client is to “to promote and protect fearlessly… their clients’ best interests.” This stresses that the client’s interest is of paramount significance to the defence lawyer, and that the lawyer must exploit all available legal options to defend the client. However, the introduction of both ‘the overriding objective’ and ‘new requirement for case management’ by the CPR has put lawyers in quite a tricky situation. “The overriding objective of this new code is that criminal cases be dealt with justly,” and the case management powers impose a duty on courts “to further the overriding objective by actively managing the case,” which includes “the early identification of the real issues,” and that “each party [including defence] must assist the court in fulfilling its duty” under this rule. The defence lawyer was already under a potentially contentious obligation to disclose their case at the pre-trial stage under S. 6(e) Criminal Procedure and Investigation Act 1996. But, the CPR took this requirement a little further to include the ‘identification of the real issues’ at the earliest stage. The introduction of the CPR directly stemmed from the recommendations of Lord Justice Auld’s Review of the Criminal Courts of England and Wales 2001. Before the rules came into effect in 2005, Auld LJ had already given what could be seen as a landmark judgment in the case of R v Gleeson. In this case, Auld LJ decided that defence advocates could no longer “seek to take advantage” of prosecution errors, “by deliberately delaying identification of an issue of fact or law”. The combination of the ruling and the code, arguably, threatens three core rights of the defendant. The first of the three is presumption of innocence, which means that the accused is presumed to be innocent until the prosecution proves that s/he is guilty. The second one is the right to a fair trial, and the third being legal professional privilege. This means that what is discussed between the lawyer and his client must remain confidential unless the client wishes to disclose it. Consequently, new conflicts have arisen that can impact upon the criminal trial overall. The first is a clash between the defence lawyer’s duties towards the court versus their clients. Second, the conflict between the court’s requirement – by furthering the overriding objective – for the defence to identify any prosecution errors at the earliest stage, versus the possibility of a fair trial. These conflicts lead to broader concerns about whether evolutions of the English Criminal Justice System (CJS) are, in fact, eroding some core rights of the defendant. Some argue that system is moving away from an adversarial model to an inquisitorial one.