Our history and achievements
Discover how JUSTICE has championed reform and shaped the UK’s legal landscape.
Shaping the legal landscape
Over our 68-year history we have transformed the legal landscape for the better, led by evidence, expertise, and a focus on practical solutions.
Under its first Secretary, Tom Sargant, JUSTICE focused on exposing miscarriages of justice and pushing for reforms to ensure fairness and accountability.
Key legal bodies we now take for granted, such as the Ombudsman and the Crown Prosecution Service, were proposed and supported into being by JUSTICE. JUSTICE helped design the landmark Human Rights Act 1998 and was an early advocate for creating a UK Supreme Court, as well as the first NGO to intervene in a case before it.
Today, we continue to promote access to justice, fair trials, and rights through expert research, advocacy, and legal cases. Our work is grounded in practical experience and guided by a commitment to human rights and the rule of law.
JUSTICE remains proudly independent, non-partisan, and dedicated to meaningful, lasting legal reform.
Impact
Historic areas of achievement
“For nearly 60 years JUSTICE has been at the forefront of reimaginging the justice system. We have much to thank it for and it deserves our support.”
- Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
JUSTICE established a human rights working group as early as 1983 and began arguing for incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights in 1985. JUSTICE has acted in European Court of Human Rights appeals and assisted with the first third-party intervention allowed by that court. It played a major role in the implementation of the UK’s Human Rights Act and helped ensure the Act’s effectiveness through key legal interventions. It played a leading role in the Save our Human Rights Act coalition, working with over 100 other NGOs to successfully see off the ‘Bill of Rights Bill’.
JUSTICE successfully campaigned for legislation on the rehabilitation of offenders and for a national prosecution service. It has supported the expansion of restorative justice within the criminal justice system. It has successfully advocated to protect the right of jury trial in serious cases. JUSTICE played an important role in ensuring European Arrest Warrant decisions are expressly subject to human rights considerations.
In 1972, JUSTICE began regularly arguing for a judicial commission to play a role in the appointment of the judiciary, which was finally enacted in legislation in 2005. JUSTICE has played a leading role in the International Commission of Jurists as its British section. As then-Chair of JUSTICE, Lord Alexander delivered one of the earliest and most influential analyses of the illegality of the second Iraq war. In 2023, JUSTICE released a landmark report warning of the erosion of the UK’s rule of law.
JUSTICE assisted in the development of legal aid schemes and European standards of provision within the European Union. It has supported the development and retention of an adequate legal aid scheme in the United Kingdom.
JUSTICE was a major force in the creation of the Parliamentary Ombudsman and improvements to the coroners’ courts.
JUSTICE supported the creation of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights and has long argued for improvements to equality law.
For much of its first 40 years, JUSTICE took on cases of miscarriages of justice and helped secure the release of many wrongfully convicted prisoners. One of the most famous involved the conviction of Patrick Murphy, David Cooper and Michael McMahon for the ‘Luton post office’ murder in 1969. In 1980 their sentences were remitted after a long campaign in which JUSTICE played a major role. JUSTICE successfully argued for and supported the creation of the independent Criminal Cases Review Commission.
history
Significant milestones
Explore the timeline to discover some of the pivotal moments in JUSTICE history that shaped justice reform.
JUSTICE is formed by a group of leading jurists including Tom Sargant, to promote the rule of law and the fair administration of justice.
JUSTICE becomes the British section of the International Commission of Jurists. We continue to assist in the ICJ’s work today, to ensure the rule of law in many countries.
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Board is set up, partly in response to JUSTICE’s 1962 report Compensation for Victims of Crimes of Violence.
The first Ombudsman is appointed, after JUSTICE was amongst the first to call for the establishment of Ombudsmen in central and local government.
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act comes into effect, based upon the recommendations of JUSTICE’s 1972 report Living it Down.
The first Data Protection Act becomes law after JUSTICE press for data protection controls from its 1970 report, Privacy and the Law, onwards.
JUSTICE calls for an independent judicial appointments commission in our report The Judiciary in England and Wales – a demand which came to fruition in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission is set up, over 30 years after JUSTICE first called for an independent body to review alleged miscarriage of justice cases.
The Human Rights Act 1998 comes fully into force. JUSTICE’s then Director, Anne Owers, was a member of the government’s task force, and we were at the forefront of training for practitioners and public bodies.
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 comes into force. For more than 25 years, JUSTICE had been urging greater rights to access to information held by public bodies, publishing a report, Freedom of Information, in 1978.
The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 comes into force, and with it three reforms long advocated by JUSTICE: the creation of a Supreme Court; a more transparent process for appointing judges; and the overhaul of the traditional role of the Lord Chancellor.
JUSTICE became the first NGO to intervene in a case before the UK Supreme Court in the case of HM Treasury v Ahmed.
JUSTICE’s work on the constitutional disadvantages of reform or repeal of the Human Rights Act is instrumental in safeguarding the Act after the general election in May.
Victory in the case of Cadder in the UK Supreme Court, in which JUSTICE intervenes, gives criminal suspects in Scotland the right to legal representation in police stations.
JUSTICE Scotland launched.
The Administrative Justice Council is formed and hosted by JUSTICE (now hosted by the Ministry of Justice).
Following the suspension of all new trials due to the Covid-19 pandemic, JUSTICE led a series of mock virtual trials.
JUSTICE launches a landmark report assessing threats to the rule of law.