A new study, published today by the not-for-profit criminal defence firm Commons, found that a 2017 policy for defendants to declare their nationality in open court is causing misunderstanding amongst defendants, a significant proportion of whom give their race or ethnicity. The policy, which came in under section 162 of the Policing and Crime Act 2017, is also shown to be undermining the perception of fairness in the justice system.
The research (available here) shows that 22% of defendants think they are being asked for their race or ethnicity rather than their nationality. Almost 80% of the lawyers surveyed have had a client provide the Court with their ethnicity and/or race instead of their nationality and almost 60% of those practitioners said this happened at least once a week.
The government’s stated aim of the requirement is to “remove as many Foreign National Offenders as quickly as possible”, but deportation of foreign offenders is only mandatory when a conviction results in a custodial sentence of a year or more.
