ON APPEAL FROM Sir Michael Astill
Sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge
At the Central Criminal Court
2005 7104
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Before :
THE PRESIDENT OF THE QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
MR JUSTICE MITTING
and
MR JUSTICE FULFORD
Between :
R | Appellant |
- v - | |
K and others | Respondent |
(Transcript of the Handed Down Judgment of
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Joel Bennathan and Martin Huseyin (instructed by Imran Khan and Partners) for K
Matthew Ryder and Hossein Zahir (instructed by Birnberg Peirce) for G
Michael Mansfield QC and Faisal Osman (instructed by Imran Khan and Partners) for H
James Wood QC and Richard Harvey (Christian Khan ) for A
Michel Massih QC and Roderick Price (instructed by Christian Khan) for M
Baroness Kennedy QC and Rajiv Menon (instructed by Birnberg Peirce) for M
Patrick O’Connor QC and Hugh Mullan (instructed by McCormacks) for A
David Waters QC, Mark Heywood and Duncan Atkinson (instructed by Crown Prosecution Service) for the Prosecution
Judgment
President of the Queens bench Division
Two paragraphs permitted to be published
The judge was rightly concerned to save as much time as possible. One way for him to do so was to invite counsel who wished to make submissions to reduce them into writing, with a consequent curtailment of oral argument. Although in the result no criticism was made before us of the way in which the judge dealt with these issues, there was a suggestion of complaint in some of the written submissions. We should therefore emphasise that when dealing with matters preliminary to the trial, if the judge thought it right to do so, his new case management powers permitted him to deal with these issues exclusively by reference to written submissions, and again if he saw fit, submissions limited to a length specified by him. He is not bound to allow oral submissions, and he is certainly entitled to put a time limit on them. The necessary public element of any hearing is sufficiently achieved if the defendants themselves are supplied with copies of written submission, if they wish to see them, and the representatives of the media present at court for any hearing are similarly so supplied. We are not prescribing any particular method of approach. Case management decisions are case specific. We are simply emphasising that the new Criminal Procedure Rules impose duties and burdens on all the participants in a criminal trial, including the judge, and the preparation and conduct of criminal trials is dependent on and subject to these rules.
The disclosure process was lengthy. The stark reality is that there is no material currently available to the prosecution which has not been disclosed to the defendants, or, where non disclosure (in the form of redacted material) has not been justified at a public interest immunity hearing before the trial judge. There is no additional “prosecution material”, as defined for any of the purposes of the Criminal Procedure Investigations Act 1996, or within any of the principles relating to disclosure, which is currently undisclosed. These principles are clearly set out in the Protocol on Disclosure dated 20 February 2006. This protocol should be applied by trial judges, and those who act both for the prosecution and the defence should ensure that they familiarise themselves with it.