The Government is hell bent on dismantling the traditional safeguards of the criminal justice system. It now wants to let prosecution lawyers interview prosecution witnesses - a practice currently prohibited because of the risk of the prosecution coaching its witnesses, and tainting their evidence.
A particular motivation seems to be the Damilola Tayor case, where a young witness proved unreliable. In other words, the Government is keen that child and other vulnerable witnesses be interviewed before trial.
Yet it is child and other vulnerable witnesses in a trial that are at especial risk of being used by others; are most at risk of being coached; and pose special problems in being interviewed. See relevant article on child interviews.
Defence lawyers would be excluded from these interviews, further reducing confidence in the proposed system.
To compound the problem the Government is saying there is no need for these interviews to be recorded by video or audio, and that only written notes need be made.
In other words, there will be no record of the interview independent of the prosecution; no possibility of evaluating the effect of the interview on the witness; and no possibility of assessing the prosecutor's use of the interview. And of course, the prosecution have a career interest in successful prosecutions.
Liberty has already submitted cogent criticism of the proposals, which were floated at least a year ago.
Hard cases make bad law.
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