Recent results andthe future [05 British politics, for example a ~ llJ nge to a European-style system of proportional representation (so that Labour could at least share in a coalition government), or a formal union bet we en Labour and the Liberal Democrats (so that t ogethe r t hey could defeat the Conservatives). However, in 1997 the picture changed dramatically. Labour wo n the largest majority in the House of Com mo ns achieved by any party for 73 years and the Conservative share of the total vote was their lowest in 165 years. What happened? The answer seems to be that voting habits in Britain, reflecting the weakening of the class system, are no longer tribal. There was a time when the Labour party was regarded as the political arm of the trade unions, representing the working class of the country. Most wo rking-class people voted Labour all their lives and nearly all midd le-class people voted Conservative all their lives. The winning party at an election was the one who manage d to get the sup port of the sma ll nu mbe r of 'floating voters', But Lab our has now go t rid of its trade- unio n image. It is capable of w inn ing as many mid dle-class votes as the Conservatives, so that the middle-class majority in the population, as identified by sociologists (see above), does not automatically mean a Conservative majority in the House of Com mo ns. Q UES TIONS I The British electoral sys tem is said to discrimin- ate against smaller parties. But look at the table at the beginning of this chapter again. H ow can it be that the very small part ies had much better luck at winning parliamentary seats than the (comparatively la rge ) Liberal Democrats? 2 In what ways is political ca mpa igning in yo ur country d if ferent from that in Britain as described in this cha pt er' 3 Is there a s im ilar level of public interest in le arn - ing about election results in your country as there is in Britain?Does it seem to reflect the ge ner al level of enthusiasm about, and interest in,polit ics which existatother times - in Britain and in your ow n country? SUGGES TI ON S 4 Britain has 'single-member constituencies'. This means that one MP alone represents one par- ticular gro up of voters (eve rybo dy in his or her constituency). Is this a good system? Or is it better to have several MPs representing the same area?Whatare the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems? 5 Do you th ink tha t Britain shou ld adopt the elect- oral system used in your count ry' Or perhaps you t hink that yo ur count ry shou ld a dopt the system used in Britain?Or are the two different systems the ri ght on es for the two dif fer ent countries? Why? • Ifyou can get British television or radio , watch or listen in on the night of the next British general election. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 10 6 The law 110- Th e or ganization of the police f orc e There is no national police force in Britain. All police employees work for one of the forty or so separatc forces wh ich each have resp ons ibil- ity fo ra particular geog raphical area. Originally. these were set up locally. Only later did central govern ment gain some control over them. h inspects them and has influence over senior appoint ments w ithin them . In return, it prov ides about half o f the moncy to run them. The other half comes from local gove rnment. The exce ption to this system is the Metr op oli tan Poli ce Force. which polices Greater London. The 'Met' is under the direct control of central go vernment. It also performs certain nationa l police functions such as the registration of all cr imes and crim- inals in England and Wales and the com pilation of the missing persons regis ter. Ne w Sco tland Yard is the famou s building whi ch is the head- quarters of its Criminal Investigation Department (C ID). The police and the public There was a time when a supposedly typical British policeman could be found in every tourist brochure for Britain. His strange- loo king helmet and the fact that he did not carry a gun made him a unique symbol for tourists. The image of the friendly British 'bobb y', with his fatherly manner, was also well-known wi thin the country and was reinforced by p opu lar television serials such as Dix on of Do ck Green ( 0) Ima g es ofthe pa l ice: pas t andpr es ent). This positive image was not a comp lete myth. The system of policing was based on each police officer having his o wn 'beat', a particular neighb ourh ood which it was his duty to patrol. He usually did this on foot or sometimes by bicycle.The local b obb y was a familiar figure on the streets, a reassur- ing presence that people felt they could trust absolutely. In the 1960s the situation began to change in two ways. First, in response to an increasingly motorized society, and therefore increas- ingly motorized crime, the police themselves started patrolling in cars. As a res uh, individual police officers became remote figures and stopped being the familiar faces that they once were. Asign of this change was the new television police drama, ZCars. This pro - gramme showed police officers as peop le with real problems and failings who did not always behave in the conventionally polite and reassuring manner. Some police were relieved to be presented as ordinary human beings. But the comparatively negative image of the police wh ich this progr amm e portrayed caused uproa r and several senior police officials c omp lained to the BBCabout it' At the same time, the police found themselves having to deal increasingly with public demonstrations and with the activities of a generation who had no experience of war and ther ef ore no obvious enemy-figure on which to focus their youthful feelings of rebellion . These young people started to see the police as the symbol of everything they disliked about society. Police of ficers wer e no longer kno wn as 'bobbies' but became the 'f uzz' or the 'cops' or the 'pigs'. Since the middle years of the twentieth centur y, the police in Britain have lost much of their positive image. A child who is lost is still advised to find a police officer, but the Sight of one no longer creates a general feeling of reassurance. In the 1980s there Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. werea large num ber of cases in wh ich it was found that police officers had lied and cheated in order to get people con victed of crimes ( c- The Stefan Ki zs ko ca se). As a result, trust in the ho nesty and incorrup tibility of the police has declined. Nevertheless, there is still a great dea l of pu blic sympathy for the police. It is fell that they are doing an increasingly difficult job u nde r difficult circumstances . The ass umpti on that their role is to serve the public rather t han 1O be agents of the gove rnme nt persists. Police officers often still address members of the public as 's ir' or 'madam '. Senior of ficers think it is imp ort ant for the police 1O establish a rela- tionship witlt local people, and the phr ase 'comm unity policing ' is now fashi onab le. Some police have even started to patrol on foot again. Generally speaking, the relati onship between police and p ub lic in Britain com pares quit e favourably w ith that in some other European countries.British police still do not carry gun s in the course of normal duty (althougli all police stations have a store of wea pon s). Cri me and cr im inal proced ure There is a widespread feeling among the British pub lic that crime is increasing. Figures on this matter are noto riou sly difficult to evalu- ate, however. On e rea son for this is that not all actual crimes are necessarily rep orted . Official figures suggest that the crim e of rape increased by more t han 50 % between 1988 and 1992 . But these figures nu y represent an increase in the number of victims willing to report rape rather than a real increase in cases of rape. Images oft he polic e: past and pr es en t Cr ime and criminal procedure 1 °7 The St ef an Kiz sko case On 18 February 1992, a man who had s pent the previous sixteen years of his life in prison serving a sen- tence for m urder was released. It had been proved that he did not in fact comm it the crime. In the early 1990Sa large number of peop le were let out of British gaols after spending several years serving sentences for crimes they did not commit . The most famous of these were 'th e Guildford Four' and 't he Birmingham Six', both groups of people convicted of terrorist bomb ings. In every case, previous court judgements were changed when it became dear that the police had not acted properly (for example, they had falsified the evid - ence of their notebooks or had not revealed i mportant evidence). Public confidence in the police dim inished. In {he case of the alleged bombers, there remained some pub lic sympathy. The police officers involved may have been v\'rong but they were trying to catch terrorists. The Kizsko case was dif - ferent. He did not belong to an illegal organization. His only' crime' was that he was in the \ v rong place at the wrong time. He also con - f orm ed to a stereotype, which made him an easy victim of prejudice. He was of below average intelligence and he had a foreign name, so a jury \ as likely to see him as a potential mu rderer. The traditional image: Dixon of DockGreen speaking fatherly words ofwisdom to the television audience in the 1960s. The modern image: a scene from the popular I 990S television series The Bill. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Nevertheless. it is generally accepted that in the last qu arter of the twentieth century. the number of crimes went up ( !> Iscrimeincreasing in Br itain?). And the rea r of cri me seems to have increased a lot. This has gone tog eth er with a lack of confidence in the abili ty of the police to catch criminals. In the early I 9 90 S pri vate security fi rm s were one of the fastest-g row ing businesses in the country. Another re spon se to the perceived situation has been the gro wth of Neighbour hoo d Watch schemes. They attempt to edu cate pe opl e in crime prev ention and to encourage the people of a particular neighb ourhood to look out f or anything suspicious. In 1994 the gov ernmen t was even con- sidering helping mem bers of these s cheme s to orga nize pa tro ls. Ther e has also been some impat ience wit h the rules of criminal pro cedu re un der which the po lice and courts have to operate. The police are not, of cour se, above the law. When they arrest somebody on suspicion of having committed a crim e, they have to follow certain pro c edure s. For exa mp le. unless they obtain special pe rm ission, they are not allowed to de tain a pers on for mo re than tw ent y -f our ho urs wit hout formally charging that pers on wit h having committed a crime. Even after they have charged so me body. they need permi ssion to remand that person in custody (i.e. to keep him or her in pris on ) unt il the case is heard in court. In 1994 public concern ab out crim- inals 'getting awa y with it'Ted the gov ernm ent to make one very controversial change in the law ( 0) Cauti on!). 108 I I The law Cau tion! 'You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but wh at }'ou say mar be given in evidence'. These words are well-known to almost everybody in Britain. They have been heard in thousands of police dramas on television. For a lon g time they formed wha t is tech- nically kn own as the caution, which must be read out to an arrested person in order to make the arrest legal. But, in t 99+, the British gov- ern ment decided that the 'ri ght to silence ' con tained in the caution made things too easy for criminals. This right meant that the refusal of an arrested person to answer police questions could not be used as p an of the evidence against him or her. Now, however, it can. To accord with the new law, the words of the caution have had to be changed. The new formu la is: 'You do not have to say anything. BlII if you do not mention now something which y ou later lise in your defence, the coun may decide that your failure to menti on it now strengt hens the case against you. A record will be made of anything you say and it may be given in evidence if you are bro ught to trial'. Ctvtl ltberues groups in Britain are angry about this change. They say that many arrested people find it too difficult to understand and that it is not fair to encourage people to defend themselves imme diately against charges about whic h they do not yet know the details. They are also afraid it cncourages false confessions. Is cr im e increasing in Britain? British people think that crime is rising in Britain, but it is impossible to give a completely reliable answer to this question. Figures vary from ycafto year. In 199 3 for instance, the total n umbe r of recorded crimes in the London area actually went d own by around 10%. And the murde r rate is no higher, or even lower, than it was dur ing the se cond half of the nineteenth century. However, there is no doubt that in the last quarter of the twentieth century there was a definite increase in certain ty pes of crime. Crimes with firearms (guns. rifles ere) are an example, as the graph shows. Off ences involving firearms recorded by the police in England and Wales 12.000 10.000 8,000 6,000 4.000 2,000 ~ J Criminal damage ,.,. 1Robbery ~ l Violence against the person Source: CriminalStatis tics, Home Office Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. The system of justice 1°9 The system of justice The system of justice in Engla nd and Wales, in both civil and criminal cases, is (as it is in North A me rica) an adversarial system, In criminal cases there is no such thin g as an examining magi strate who tries lO discover the real truth abou t what h app ened. In formal t erm s it is not the business of any court to find out 'the truth' . Its j ob is Si mp ly to decide 'yes' or 'n o' to a particular pr op osition (in criminal cases, t1;at a certain pers on is guilty of a certain crime) af ter it has heard arguments and evidence from bot h sides (in criminal cases these sides are known as the def ence a nd the prosecuti on) . There are basically tWOkinds of cou rt. More than 90% of all cases are dealt wi th in magistrates' courts, Every town has on e of these, In them, a pane l of magistrates (usually thr ee) passes judgement. In cases wh ere they have decided somebody is guilty of a cri me, they can also impose a puni shm ent. This can be impri s onm ent f or up to a year, or it can be a fine, alth ough if it is a person's 'first offence' and the crim e is not serious, they often impo se no puni shm en t at all ( t> The senten ce ofthis court is .). Magistrates' courts are anothe r ex amp le of the importance of amateurism in British pub lic life, Magistrates, who are also known as Justices of the Peace (IP s). are not trained lawyers. They are just ordinary pe opl e of g ood reputation who have been appointed to the job by a local com mirtee. They do not get a salary or a fee for their wor k (though t hey get paid expenses). Inevitably, they t end to come % 0 5 16 IS 20 H ]0 Th e s ent enc e of this c ou rt is . If it is som cone's first offence, and the crime is a small one, even a guilty person is often un co nditi on - ally di scharged . He or she is set free without pu nishm ent , The next e'ep up the ladder is a condi tional disch arg e. This mea ns that the gUilty pers on is set free but if he or she com mits another crime within a stated lime. the first crime will be taken into account, He or she may also be put on pro bati on . which means that regular meet ings with a social worker must take place. A very com mo n form of punish- ment for m inor offences is a fine. which means that the guilt y person has to pay a sum of mone y, Another possibilit y is that the convi cted person is sentenced to a certain num ber of hours of co m- munit y service. Wherever possible . magistrates and judges try not to impri son people. This costs the stale mon ey. the cou ntry's prisons are already overcrowded and prisons have a repurauon for being 'schools for cri me'. Even peo ple who are sent to prison do not usually serve the whole time to which they were sen- tenced. The)' get 'remi ssi on' of their sentence for 'good behaviour '. There is no de ath pen alt y in Britain. except for treason. It was abolished for all othe r offen ces in 1969, A ltho ugh public opinion polls often show a majority ill favour of its return. a majority ofM Ps has always been against it. For mur - derers. there is an obligatory lif e se nte nce , H ow ever. 'life' does not normally mean life. How m any victims? One wa)' of estimating the level of crime is to interview people and ask th em whether the)' have been the victims of crime, On the left arc some of the results of a survey in [99 0 which interviewed 2 ,0 0 0 peop le in several cou ntries. The figures show the percenta ges of interviewees who said they had been victims . Car thefts - - - - - - - % 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 Victim s of c rim e All surv eyed crime s USA Canada Australia Netherlands Spain West Germany England & Wales France Scotland Belgi um Norway Finland Swi tzerland Northern Ireland Source:InrernationalHome Office Crime Survey Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 1 10 II The law Som e terms co nn ect ed with the legal system acq uitte d found not guilt}' by the co ur t bail a sum of money guaranteed by somebo dy on behalf of ,1 person who has been charged with a crime so that he or she can go free until the time of the trial. Ifhe or she doe s not appear in coun. the pers on 'standing bail' has to pay the mone y. convicted found guihy by the court def en dant the part}' who denies a claim in court: the person accused of a crime on re ma nd in prison awaiting trial pa rty one of the sides in a coun case. Because of the adversarial system , there mu st always be two pani cs in anr case: one to make a claim and one to de ny this claim . plaintiff the part}' who makes a claim in coun. IIInearly allcrim - inal cases, the plaintiffis the police. verdict the decision of the coun A t ypic al co urtr oom sce ne s ho wing t he judg e, thejury, anda witn ess bei ng qu es - tioned by a barri ster (ca meras are not cl lo we d in co urt) ) fr om the wealthier sections of society and, in tim es past. their preju- dices were very obvious. They wer e especially har sh, for instance, on peo ple fo und guilty of poac hin g (hunt ing animals on private land) , even tho ugh these people sometimes had to poach in order to put f ood on th eir families' tables. In m od ern tim es, h ow ever, somc care is taken to make sure thatJPs are recruited fr om as broad a section of society as possible. Even serious criminal cases are first heard in a magistrate's c ourt . H ow ever, in these cases, the JPs only need to decide that there is a prima fa ciecase again st the accused (in other words, that it is possible that he or she may be guilt)'). The)' then refer the case to a hi gher court. In mo st cases this will be a c row n court, wh ere a pro fessional lawyer acts as the judge and the decision regarding guilt or innocence is taken by a jury. Juries consist of twelve peop le selectcd at ran d om from the list of voters. They do not gct paid for their services and are obliged to p erf orm this du ty. In order for a verdict to be reached, there must be agreemcnt among at least len of them . If this does not happ en , the ju dge has to declare a mistrial and the case mu st start all over again with a different jury. Aconvicted person may app eal to the Court of Criminal Appeal (generall)' known just as the Appeal Court) in London either to have the conviction quashed (i.c, the jur y's previous verdict is overruled and they are prono un ced ' no t guilty') or to have the sentence (i.e. puni shment) reduced. The highest court of all in Britain is the House ofL ords (see c hap ter 9). The du ty of the jud ge during a trial is to act as the referee whil e the pro secution and de fence pu t their cases and que stion witnesses, and to decide wh at evidence is a dmi ssible and what is not (wha t can or can 't be taken into acc ount b), the jury). It is also, of course, the ju dge 's job to impose a puni shm ent (k now n as ' pro nounc ing sentence') on tho se f ound guilt),of crimes. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. The legal profession There are t\VO distinct kinds o flawye r in Britain. One of these is a solicitor. Ever ybo dy who nee ds a lawyer has to go to one of these. They handle most legal matters for t heir clien ts, incl uding the drawing up of docume nts (s uch as wills, divorce papers and contracts) . co mm unicating with ot her parties. and pr esenting their clients' cases in magi stra tes' court s. However, on ly since 1994 have solicitors been a llowed to present cases in higher court s. If the trial is to be heard in on e of these, the solicitor normally hires the services of the other k ind ofl awy er - a barrister. The on ly function of barristers is to pres ent cases in court. The train ing of the two kinds oflawyer is very different. All soli- citors have to pass the Law Society exam. They study for this exam while 'articled ' to established firms of solicitors whe re they do muc h of the everyday jun ior work un til they are qua lified. Barristers have to att end one of the four Inns of Court in Lond on. These ancient instituti on s are model led somew hat on Oxb r idge col - leges (see chapter 1 4). For example, although there are some lectures, the only atte ndance requirement is to eat di nne r there on a certain nu mber of evenings each te rm . After four years, t he trai nee barristers then sit exams . If they pass, they are 'c alled to the bar' and are recognized as barristers. However, they are still not allowed to pre s ent a case in a cr own court. The y can only do this after several more years of association wi th a senior ba rri ster, after w hich the most able of t hem appl y to 'take silk' . Those whose app licat ions are acce pted can put the letters QC (Quee n's Counsel) after t heir names. Neither kind oflawyer needs a university qualificat ion . The vast majority of barristers and most solicitors do in fact go to university, bur they do no t necessarily study law there. This arrangeme nt is typically British (see chapte r 14). The different styles of training refle ct the different wo rlds that the two kiuds oflawyer live in , a nd also the different skills t hat they develop. Solicitors have to deal with the realities of the everyday world and its prob lems. Most of their work is done away from the courts. They of ten become expe rts in the details of particular areas of the law. Barristers, on the other hand , live a more rarefied existence. For one thing, they tend to co me from the upper stra ta of society. Furthe rmore , their p rotection from eve ryd ay realities is increased by certain legal rules. For exam ple, they are not supposed to talk to any oftheir clients, or to theirclient's witnesses, except in t he presence of the solicitor who has hired them. They are experts on ge nera l principles of the law rather than on details, and they acquire the special skill of elo qu en ce in publi c spea king. W hen they present a case in court, they, like judges, put on the archaic gow n and wig which, it is supposed, emphasize the im person al majesty of the law. It is exclusively from the ranks of barr isters that judge s are appointed. Once they have been appoin ted, it is a lmost i mposs ible The legal profession I I I A barri sterin the gown andwig that m ust be wornin court Ministry of justice? Actually there is no such thing in Britain. The things that such a min is- try takes care of in other countries are shared between a number of authorities, in particular the Home Office, which admini sters prisons and supervises the police, and the office of the Lord Chanc ellor, which over sees the appointment of judges, magistrates and othe r legal officers. The law in Sc otl and Scotland has its own legal system, separate from the rest of the United King dom . Although it also uses an adversarial system oflega l proced- ure, the basis of its law is closer to Roman and Dutch law. The names of several officials in Scotland are also different from those in England and Wales. A very noticeable feature is that there are three, not just t wo, possible verdicts. Aswell as 'g uilty' and 'not guilty'. a jury may reach a verdict of 'not pro v en', which means that the accused person cannot be punished but is not com - pletely cleared of guilt either. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. . that voting habits in Britain, reflecting the weakening of the class system, are no longer tribal. There was a time when the Labour party was regarded as. said to discrimin- ate against smaller parties. But look at the table at the beginning of this chapter again. H ow can it be that the very small part ies had much better luck