“A Tissue, A Tissue, It All Falls Down”: A Review of the Impacts of Covid-19 on the English Criminal Court System Between March 2020 and March 2021

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the criminal court system to a grinding halt on 17 March 2020, as it did much of life in England; this was the starting point for drastic and sudden change across the criminal court system. There were three primary categories of change: increased the delays in criminal proceedings; wide-ranging changes to the use of live links and the administration of remote justice; and a revaluation of approaches to open justice. This thesis addresses each of these categories in turn, evaluating the degree of impact they have on the actors involved in these matters – the defendants, victims, and even legal professionals. It does this by using a range of primary sources, such as Twitter posts, the Courts and Tribunals Service court data, caselaw and legislation, alongside the use of secondary sources, including reports from Non-Governmental Organisations, contemporary news articles and blogs, and academic commentary. The thesis finds that COVID-19 resulted in widespread and detrimental changes to the criminal court system in England, and that recovery from them is lacking. This has had a directly negative impact on the experiences of actors involved in that system. Many of the detrimental changes were an exacerbation of flaws in an already overburdened and vulnerable system. The importance of these changes cannot be overstated, nor can the need for them to be remedied. Ultimately, without attention, and funding, being given to resolving the impacts that have developed as a result of COVID-19, there may be implications for the very integrity of the criminal court process in England.