“Listen to victims”: Victims’ Commissioner issues heartfelt plea to MPs ahead of debate on landmark reforms to the courts

In a powerful open letter addressed to Members of Parliament today, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, Claire Waxman OBE, urged lawmakers to keep victims at the centre of the upcoming debate on court reform. The intervention comes ahead of the Second Reading of the Courts and Tribunals Bill, scheduled for Tuesday 10 March.

The Commissioner’s letter comes as over 30 female Labour MPs have written to the Justice Secretary, David Lammy, urging the Government to remain steadfast in its modernisation of the court system. The MPs highlighted that the current backlog, which exceeds 80,000 cases, is failing women and girls, with victims of rape and domestic abuse facing trial dates as late as 2030.

In her letter, Claire Waxman highlights the profound "human cost" of these delays, citing victims who have lost jobs, suffered severe declines in their mental health, and attempted suicide while waiting years for their day in court. 

While welcoming essential steps such as recent announcements on unlimited sitting days and significant investment in the court estate, the Commissioner stresses that investment and efficiency measures alone will not fix the systemic issues.

Echoing the conclusions of Sir Brian Leveson, she argues that structural reform is now unavoidable to prevent demand in the Crown Court from continuing to outstrip supply. This includes adjusting the threshold of when a case warrants a jury’s involvement to end the intolerable delays facing victims.

"The Government asked Sir Brian Leveson to find a way out before the system collapses. His conclusion is clear: investment and efficiency alone will no longer solve this crisis. Structural reform is now unavoidable," writes Claire Waxman OBE.

"Justice delayed is not an abstract principle - it is the compounding and prolonging of trauma. I have asked victims stuck in our court system: faced with waiting years for a jury trial, would they prefer to wait or accept a judge if it meant swift justice? Those enduring the longest waits have been clear - they would sacrifice the wait for a jury if it meant timely justice."

She asks that as Parliament prepares to debate these crucial reforms, they do not lose sight of the people at its heart and listen to the reality of the waits they endure. "Please listen to victims: their voices, their stories, and the reality of the waits they endure", she writes. "Because without them, there will be no justice."

"Of course, Parliament must debate and scrutinise these proposals carefully", she writes. "But here is the reality: if we debate endlessly and fail to implement urgent solutions that reduce waiting times, victims will simply stop engaging with the justice system altogether. They cannot endure years of uncertainty and re-
traumatisation. Fewer will come forward. More cases will collapse. Offenders will act with increasing impunity, and public safety will suffer."

Today’s intervention follows the Commissioner's long-standing warnings regarding the crisis in the courts. Following the publication of the second and final part Sir Brian Leveson's Review of the Criminal Courts, the Commissioner warned that only "decisive system-wide action" could prevent a total collapse.

“What happens next falls to Government – and to Parliament," the Commissioner warned at the time. "But without bold reform, I must ask Parliamentarians and stakeholders alike a fundamental question: on what basis can I, as Victims’ Commissioner, ask victims to continue to entrust their lives and their trauma to a process that is so manifestly broken?”

ENDS