‘Do you think judges are any less gullible than they used to be?’ The question was posed by the former MP Chris Mullin at an event to mark the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham Six in the House of Commons earlier this month. ‘The Court of Appeal used to consist of some of the most closed minds in the land,’ he added. As a journalist, he did much to expose the terrible injustice that, along with other Irish cases such as the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, shook the public’s faith in our justice system and led to fundamental reform of the justice system, including the creation of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).
Appeals under review
I have argued before that if the CCRC does one job well, it is deflecting attention away from the problems elsewhere, including the Court of Appeal (see ‘Justice under review (Pt 2)’, 169 NLJ 7856, p22). In February the Law Commission published
