Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 4
4
The Government should strengthen the safeguards that regulate private prosecutions to ensure that any organisation...
Recommendation
The Government should strengthen the safeguards that regulate private prosecutions to ensure that any organisation that conducts a substantial number of prosecutions is subject to the same regulatory standards and expectations of accountability and transparency as public prosecutors. We recommend that the Government should consider enacting a binding code of standards, enforced by a regulator, that applies to all private prosecutors and investigators. (Paragraph 60) Strengthening safeguards
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
It is important that any proposed changes to private prosecutions must consider the system as a whole, as changes made to one part of the system could have a major impact on the right to bring a private prosecution itself. Specific issues should not be examined in isolation and any changes must consider the principles and objectives that underpin private prosecutions and how they operate in a range of circumstances. We recognise that there are shortcomings in the conduct of some private prosecutions, but bearing in mind the Committee’s conclusion that ‘existing safeguards in place to regulate private prosecutions are effective at filtering out weak claims’, and that ‘the judicial process that applies to all prosecutions ensures that private prosecutions are rigorously tested’, we are not persuaded that introducing a binding and enforceable code of standards (or the inspection regime proposed in recommendation 8 below) would be a proportionate response. We shall continue to consider whether there is action that could be taken, short of that, to improve accountability, transparency and compliance with disclosure obligations.