Cleeland v Criminal Cases Review Commission

A refusal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission to give a case priority is a matter of case-management discretion. Judicial review will succeed only if that discretion has been exercised unlawfully or perversely. The court will not determine the merits of the proposed criminal case review when reviewing the priority decision. A claim may also become unnecessary where the case has subsequently been allocated to a caseworker.

The claimant sought judicial review of the Criminal Cases Review Commission’s refusal to give priority to his third application concerning his conviction for murder and the reliability of historical forensic evidence. The Commission explained that the case was already in the queue of in-custody cases, that other applicants could also benefit from scientific advances, and that the claimant’s innocence, the age of the case and other matters did not justify further priority.

Burton J refused permission on the papers, stating that there was no arguable basis for treating the Commission’s case-management decision as unlawful or perverse. The claimant renewed the application. By the time of the hearing, the Commission had allocated the case to a caseworker.

1. Application dismissed. The claimant’s renewed application for judicial review had no merit.
2. The Commission had exercised its discretion whether to accord priority appropriately. Its reasons addressed the relevant considerations, including the existing priority given to in-custody cases, the possibility that other cases would benefit from scientific developments, the claimant’s continued assertion of innocence, the age of the case, operational considerations and the estimated work involved.
3. The refusal of priority did not deny the claimant access to the courts. The Commission’s decision concerned the ordering and management of its caseload, not whether the claimant could pursue his application.
4. The court was concerned only with the legality of the priority decision. It made no comment on the merits of the claimant’s proposed application to the Commission or on the reliability of the forensic evidence relied upon.
5. The claim had also become unnecessary in practical terms because a caseworker had since been allocated. The court noted that the Commission had only recently received a report on which the claimant relied.

The judgment records that the claimant’s first application to the Commission was referred to the Court of Appeal in 2000, but the conviction was upheld on 12 February 2002. A later application was refused by the Commission on 31 March 2003. The present renewed judicial review application followed Burton J’s refusal of permission on the papers.