A discredited CCRC with an unreformed referral test and no external oversight

The Criminal Cases Review Commission is the sole gateway for post-appeal review of convictions, and it is in institutional collapse. Chair Helen Pitcher resigned in January 2025 after an independent panel's findings on the Malkinson case, the Henley review found systemic failure, and the Justice Committee's 2025 report found leadership unable to learn from its own mistakes and demanded root-and-branch reform. The government response so far amounts to an interim chair tasked with an operational review and agreement to pre-appointment scrutiny of future chairs. The statutory real-possibility test, which makes the CCRC second-guess the Court of Appeal rather than judge the case itself, remains unchanged, and no inspectorate covers the body. The Law Commission proposes replacing the test and creating independent inspection, and legislation is not promised.

Every wrongful conviction that stays unreferred compounds injustice and leaves the real perpetrator unpursued. The Malkinson case showed the commission declining to test DNA that later exonerated him. Without test reform and standing oversight the same failure mode persists, and no institution is empowered to detect it.

A Criminal Appeals Act implementing the Law Commission package: a referral test resting on the commission's own view of a conviction's safety, statutory independence safeguards, an independent inspectorate, resourcing tied to caseload, and the conceded pre-appointment scrutiny of the chair made statutory.

// State-led: Instrument: Criminal Appeals Act implementing the Law Commission package (reformed referral test, independent inspectorate, statutory safeguards).

The sole post-appeal gateway is in documented collapse with an unchanged referral test and no external oversight, though its immediate crisis is under interim review.