A judge has been found to have ‘misled’ a jury which has led to a miscarriage of justice with 2 men being unfairly convicted and imprisoned. Will this judge be censured at all? Judges seem enjoy a degree of protection from criticism that’s denied other professions.
I had my claim against a boiler installation company rejected by a District Judge. Let’s forget about the very questionable behaviour of the County Court officials who invited her to take over my case. And the obstacles placed in my way of getting an accurate transcript of my Hearing. When I made it clear I wanted to appeal a Decision that I think represented the most blatant miscarriage of justice, a government website informs me that appealing a judge’s Decision is a ‘costly and lengthy process.’
So even if decide I can afford it - at the age of 84 with a pacemaker and various heart problems - it’s likely this judge will escape any scrutiny of her Decision. Is such protection justified? And recently, of course, Family Law judges tried to prevent their names being published.
Appeals in the County Court are not, and are certainly not designed to be, a "costly and lengthy process" - so this sounds like a straightforward case of Government disinformation. It's true that there have been instances where County Court administrative staff (and much less commonly, County Court judges) have made an absolute procedural mess in attempting to obstruct legitimate appeals - a recent example being R (Koro) v County Court at Central London [2024] EWCA Civ 94 (https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2024/94.html) - but that's (as one would expect) an extremely rare situation.
On clicking on the link you provided for 'Mr Justice Cooke', who retired as a High Court judge in 2016, I was taken to the page for Sir Jeremy Cooke on his chambers website (7KBW). His profile includes this sentence: "He was during his time on the Bench, so the statistics show, the Commercial Judge whose decisions were least likely to be overturned in the Court of Appeal and has been, on more than one of those few occasions, upheld in the Supreme Court." That may be true for his decisions in the Commercial Court but in the light of the SC decision yesterday perhaps that sentence ought now to be qualified!
Two points if I might. Firstly, and with the exception of Lord Hughes' tenure, the reputation of our top court in dealing with crime has been far from sterling. Thing DPP v Smith, R v Moloney, Anderton v Ryan and R v Guango, to give but 4 examples.
Secondly the Court of Appeal has another means of preventing further appeals. In R v Letby after 3 days of argument and over 209 paragraphs, some of them lengthy, it concluded that her case was not even arguable and thus it refused leave to Appeal. (See 2024 EWCA Crim 748). The question of a certificate could not therefore arise
A judge has been found to have ‘misled’ a jury which has led to a miscarriage of justice with 2 men being unfairly convicted and imprisoned. Will this judge be censured at all? Judges seem enjoy a degree of protection from criticism that’s denied other professions.
I had my claim against a boiler installation company rejected by a District Judge. Let’s forget about the very questionable behaviour of the County Court officials who invited her to take over my case. And the obstacles placed in my way of getting an accurate transcript of my Hearing. When I made it clear I wanted to appeal a Decision that I think represented the most blatant miscarriage of justice, a government website informs me that appealing a judge’s Decision is a ‘costly and lengthy process.’
So even if decide I can afford it - at the age of 84 with a pacemaker and various heart problems - it’s likely this judge will escape any scrutiny of her Decision. Is such protection justified? And recently, of course, Family Law judges tried to prevent their names being published.
Appeals in the County Court are not, and are certainly not designed to be, a "costly and lengthy process" - so this sounds like a straightforward case of Government disinformation. It's true that there have been instances where County Court administrative staff (and much less commonly, County Court judges) have made an absolute procedural mess in attempting to obstruct legitimate appeals - a recent example being R (Koro) v County Court at Central London [2024] EWCA Civ 94 (https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2024/94.html) - but that's (as one would expect) an extremely rare situation.
On clicking on the link you provided for 'Mr Justice Cooke', who retired as a High Court judge in 2016, I was taken to the page for Sir Jeremy Cooke on his chambers website (7KBW). His profile includes this sentence: "He was during his time on the Bench, so the statistics show, the Commercial Judge whose decisions were least likely to be overturned in the Court of Appeal and has been, on more than one of those few occasions, upheld in the Supreme Court." That may be true for his decisions in the Commercial Court but in the light of the SC decision yesterday perhaps that sentence ought now to be qualified!
Two points if I might. Firstly, and with the exception of Lord Hughes' tenure, the reputation of our top court in dealing with crime has been far from sterling. Thing DPP v Smith, R v Moloney, Anderton v Ryan and R v Guango, to give but 4 examples.
Secondly the Court of Appeal has another means of preventing further appeals. In R v Letby after 3 days of argument and over 209 paragraphs, some of them lengthy, it concluded that her case was not even arguable and thus it refused leave to Appeal. (See 2024 EWCA Crim 748). The question of a certificate could not therefore arise