Public struggle to get access to justice as courts close

COURT closures have left most Parliamentary constituencies without active courts, new research suggests.

Industry body the Bar Council, which represents barristers in England and Wales, said the public will “lose confidence” in the judicial process if they cannot get quick and efficient access to the courts after it emerged more than two in five have closed since 2010.

The research supports the latest data on the mammoth backlog of cases.

Mark Fenhalls QC, chairman of the Bar Council, said: “The closure of hundreds of courts means that people must travel further and for longer, and waiting lists and backlogs have grown.

“If people cannot access justice quickly and efficiently, the public will lose confidence that the law will help them resolve family, property, and financial disputes.”

The Bar Council’s research said there have been 239 court closures in England and Wales in the last 12 years, meaning just 57 per cent remain open.

It said there are now 373 parliamentary constituencies without an active local court, including the constituency of the Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab.

It comes as latest figures from the HM Courts and Tribunals Service show 358,076 outstanding cases at magistrates courts and 58,271 outstanding cases at crown courts, as of April 2022.

The watchdogs for prisons, probation, police and prosecutors last year warned the “unprecedented” court case backlog posed the greatest threat to the criminal justice system.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “All closed sites were shut because they were either underused, due maintenance work or too close to another.”