F169 said:
I know we are not allowed to discuss ongoing legal cases so I will stick to the general. Is it fair that it takes over six months to get a trial just to the plea and case management stage? It might as well be Guantanamo if someone who is supposedly innocent until proven guilty spends so long behind bars with bail rejected.
No it's not fair but it's the way the system works in practice. However I should have thought Defendent X would have had a preliminary hearing in a Magistrates Court well before that, if only to set the trial date and start the process rolling... but I've only studied the theory... can some legal practitioners help?
On the Guantanamo comparison however there is
no similarity. We do not engage in routine torture or degradation of defendents and those in custody (who are only held in custody if they are deemed a danger to the public). Remand prisoners ultimately face a trial in a civil court subject to certain basic legal standards and are entitled to a fair trial. They may not be held either incomunicado or indefinately without trial. Where they are held, it is to give the police time to accumulate evidence against them and for the CPS to make a case against them that will stand-up in court. The legal system's viewpoint is that is the defendant is released having been found to be not guilty, either by a jury or more often by the judicial panel hearing the case, then his liberty is sufficient compensation. I know this is hopelessly out-of-date today but even the European Court of Human Rights and the EU Court have
not indicated in past rulings that they look upon this unfavourably.