PROLONGED DETENTION FOR PRISONERS ON REMAND IN BRITAIN?
The British government has laid draft orders before the parliament to give powers, under the Criminal Justice Act 1988, to all courts in England and Whales to remand defendants in custody for up to 28 days at a time.
At the present, remands in custody from Magistrates Courts have been restricted to 8 days, providing the safeguard that the authorities were required to physically produce a defendant in court at weekly intervals. The position was first eroded in the Criminal Justice Act 1982 which allowed, that so long a defendant was legally represented and positively waived his right to a hearing, they need not to appear in court in person for up to 28 days.
The new Orders will now allow Magistrates to impose full 28 days remand in custody on defendants, against their will and regardless of wether they are legally represented, so long as they are over 17 years of age.
The Chairman of the Prison Reform Trust has criticized the proposed regulations. He states that, when the system of 28 days remand was first proposed in 1989, "concern was expressed that this might leed to an even larger prison remand population. The experiment that has now taken place (in which the 28 days remand were tested by 4 courts) confirms that this risk is serious. In the courts concerned, average periods of remand did frequently increase".
Source: "Statewatch" No.5, November/December 1991