More people than ever seem to be defending themselves. If you effect it,make sure you understand the law, know the lingo and how to play the systemIf you were charged with a crime, or could you defend yourself in court without a barrister or a solicitor? increasingly of us are doing just that,according to the legal charity Transform Justice. In the absence of official statistics, it reports, or data from the Ministry of Justice,freedom of information responses, an online poll of lawyers, or surveys of prosecutors,judges and magistrates and fieldwork at courts all point to a “significant increase” in the number of unrepresented defendants in magistrates courts. A 2014 survey by the Magistrates Association found a quarter of defendants fighting criminal charges without a lawyer.
You may reflect that if you’re harmless you don’t need a lawyer, but that’s the kind of naivety that could see you ending up wrongly convicted while the one-armed man responsible goes free. “I possess prosecuted trials against unrepresented defendants, or ” one lawyer told the charity. “It is a total sham and a pale imitation of justice.” But if you are unlucky enough to possess to fight your case yourself,or if you’re confident enough in your presentational and analytical abilities, here’s some of what you’ll need to effect.
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Source: theguardian.com