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Issues in Criminal Justice; Lecture by Rt Hon Lord Falconer Issues in Criminal Justice - University of Birmingham: A Criminal Justice system for the 21st century lecture by Rt Hon Lord Falconer of Thoroton Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor.

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M2 PRESSWIRE-30 January 2004-UK Government: Issues in Criminal Justice; Lecture by Rt Hon Lord Falconer Issues in Criminal Justice - University of Birmingham: A Criminal Justice system for the 21st century lecture by Rt Hon Lord Falconer of Thoroton Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor(C)1994-2004 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

RDATE:01292004

I want to begin by extending a warm thank you to Professor Shute for inviting me here to open the fourth series of Issues in Criminal Justice Lectures. And I'd like, too, to thank you all for coming here this evening. I know that many of you are students, and that many of you are legal professionals. I believe that this is an important and exciting time for legal and wider constitutional reform. Only this week I announced in the House of Lords the agreement we have reached with the judiciary on the shape of the judicial system in Britain following our proposed abolition of the office of Lord Chancellor.

This is a major step forward, an historic agreement which, with the approval of Parliament, will lay the foundations of the judicial system for many, many years to come.

So I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk to you this evening about the criminal justice system we have, and about the criminal justice system we want to see.

What I want to do tonight is really three things: - firstly, our vision: to set out what seem to me to be the clear principles and clear objectives for a criminal justice system in a civilised society - secondly, performance: to measure how far the criminal justice system we now have measures up to those principles and objectives - and how well we've done since 1997 in our efforts to reform and improve criminal justice in Britain - and finally, the future: to try to give some indications of the objectives and process of the continuing reform of the criminal justice system which I believe is vital for justice in this country.

As a government, our vision for the criminal justice system in Britain is clear, and it is simple. We don't need a wholly new, reinvented criminal justice system for the 21st century. We need the criminal justice system we have now to work.

All societies have rules: boundaries and limits of behaviour which allow communities and individuals within those communities to survive and to prosper. In democratic societies, those limits are set by aggregated assent, by the people joining together and making decisions, through democratic assemblies about what behaviour is acceptable, and what is not.

In advanced societies, the justice system is the means by which those rules are enforced, for the common good of all. Civil justice regulates behaviour within the confines of the law. Criminal justice regulates behaviour which moves outside the confines of the law. So we want a criminal justice system which polices the boundaries we all have set.

What does that mean in practice ? What it means is that we want a criminal justice system which: - convicts the guilty - identifies and acquits the innocent - ensures that the public have confidence that the system provides both justice for criminals and for victims, and security for all These are big, simple, but vital issues. They are an essential component of the instruction set the electorate gives to governments.

Providing security for people is a central role for government.

Security against danger through the defence services. Security against ill health through the NHS. Security against disadvantage through the welfare state. And security against crime through the criminal justice system.

A key part of the platform on which the Government was elected in 1997 was reducing crime, and modernising the criminal justice system.

Central to that was a realisation that tackling crime had for too long not been a priority. Until the early 1990s, too many people had tended to think of crime and criminal behaviour as the product of wider socio-economic factors, such as unemployment or deprivation. We were "tough on the causes of crime" but not on crime itself.

When Tony Blair became Shadow Home Secretary, that approach began to change. We had come to recognise that tackling crime was a social justice objective. We began to take seriously the need to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. We set...

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