Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

This is the noble and learned Baroness’s amendment, so she will have the last word. The letter assists us in showing how far she has got in her consideration, but there are other issues. There is a certain comfort in the fact that a lawyer will have looked at the charge, but the presentation of the case in court demands a knowledge of the laws of evidence, a knowledge of the ethics, and skills in presentation. We shall see whether those are all available. The noble and learned Baroness should also bear in mind that the clerk to the court does not have to be legally qualified, although in my youth—I dare say that it was not the case in her youth—the clerk to a magistrates’ court was almost always a qualified lawyer, which certainly is not the case today. One envisages a situation where you have an undefended defendant, an unqualified prosecutor, an unqualified clerk and magistrates of experience and wisdom, no doubt, but not necessarily legally qualified to pick up the problems that can arise in the presentation of a case, and not necessarily in a position to understand the niceties of what is happening in front of them.