The Centre for Criminal Appeals is a new “access to justice” initiative, currently in its pilot phase. Once independently operational, the Centre's mission will be to:1. Work to overturn unsafe convictions by providing investigation and legal advice and advocacy on criminal appeal cases in England and Wales, on a non-profit basis2. Share the lessons learned from this casework with criminal justice policy makers, the legal profession and the public, in order to improve the accuracy and fairness of the criminal justice system3. Pilot a replicable model for non-profit criminal legal service provision by free-standing charities
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The shortfall in representation for criminal appeals A person who has been subjected to an unsafe conviction typically needs the help of a lawyer to achieve access to justice. That lawyer will need to re-investigate the case, seek new evidence and present the case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) and/or the Court of Appeal.Only rarely can a prisoner afford to pay for such legal representation. The public funding situation for appeals work means that private law firms do very little of it and then not as well as they would like. Prisoners approach law firms all over the country seeking help, but only rarely can they find it.This situation is well-known to legal practitioners but has now been substantiated in a quantitative study. In 2008, researchers at the University of Warwick prepared a report to the Legal Services Commission examining the extent and impact of legal representation on applications to the CCRC and the ensuing outcomes in the Court of Appeal.The study found that only a third of applicants to the CCRC are legally represented, but that applications involving lawyers were almost twice as likely to contain successful submissions. It also acknowledged that an unrepresented applicant is significantly disadvantaged when challenging a CCRC decision not to refer a case to the Court of Appeal. The Centre for Criminal Appeals aims to tackle the shortage of quality representation in this area via a non-profit, specialised law practice that is a registered charity.
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