Before you apply, we strongly recommend that you read about the CCRC’s application process, to help you to understand how we work and how to make the best application possible.
This section of the website aims to answer common questions from applicants. For further advice, you can read our Q&A booklet, including translated versions, here.
No.
A prison sentence cannot be increased if you make an application to the CCRC. A sentence also cannot be increased if we send a case back to the appeal court.
We do not charge anything, so applying to us will not cost you any money.
If you apply to us and your case is referred to the appeal court, the court cannot add to your sentence if they turn down your appeal.
No, you do not need a lawyer to apply to us. If you fill out an application form and send it to us, we will look at your case. We will look into your case whether or not you are represented by a lawyer.
The case review process can involve complicated legal issues. A good lawyer can help you to understand these issues. See our guidance for applicants’ legal representatives.
A solicitor may be able to get funding to help with your case under the Legal Aid scheme.
You can get advice about finding a lawyer by contacting Civil Legal Advice on 0345 345 4345, Minicom 0345 609 6677.
The CCRC does not act as your lawyer. Our job is to look into your case independently. This means that we do not represent you, but it also means that we do not represent the police, the prosecution or anyone else. The CCRC is independent of everyone.
How long your case takes will depend on lots of things. A straightforward review might only take a few weeks.
A more complicated review can take many months – or even years, for the most complex investigations.
The CCRC was created specially to review cases where someone says they have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
We have special legal powers under section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 which mean we can get any information that we need from any public body in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This means that we can get sensitive information from organisations like social services, the armed forces and intelligence agencies.
We can obtain material that the police and the prosecution did not have to disclose to the defence (including Public Interest Immunity or PII material) and information from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority and others.
We will use our special legal powers to get the information we think we need to review a case. We may use any information to review a case. We will always be very careful about releasing sensitive information to anyone outside the CCRC.
We look at cases in the order in which they arrive.
We do deal with the cases of people in prison before those of people who are out of prison or who didn’t go to prison. If you received a life sentence and are out on licence, we will treat you in the same way that we would treat someone who is in custody.
We also deal with cases of people under 21 as a priority.
There may be special reasons why a particular case should be looked at more urgently. These special reasons can be things like concerns about the health of the person applying, a serious illness affecting a potentially important witness, or something affecting how long evidence may last. The time to tell us about any special reasons in your case will usually be after we have written to you to say we will be reviewing your case.
We will look carefully at all the points made by an applicant or their representative. We will decide what enquiries we think are needed in each case. We will consider requests for particular investigations, but we will only carry out work if we think it will help the review.
Our decisions about what investigations to do are always based on the relevance and potential evidential value of the work in question.
Our team of independent Commissioners make the decision whether to send a case back to the appeal court. Our Commissioners come from a range of professional backgrounds. Many are legally qualified.
All have been chosen because of their experience. All have proven ability to make important decisions in complicated matters. Commissioners are appointed by the Monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister.
You can ring or email us – but we prefer to have things in writing. This is because it gives us a clear record of everything so we can go back to it when thinking about your case. Our details are in the Contact us page
You can only contact us by email if you have scanned in your signed application form. You might prefer to use our online application form. After you have applied, you can contact us by email us about your case.
In most cases we can find out everything we need to in writing, or on the phone. If we think we need to talk to you face to face we can arrange a video conference or meeting with you.
We do not usually receive visitors at the CCRC office. If we decide that we do need to meet you, we will agree the meeting in advance.
If you think you have not been treated fairly, you can make a formal complaint to the CCRC.
You can complain up to three months after we have closed your case. We will look at how the CCRC has behaved. We cannot review your case again under the formal complaint process.
If you think that there is something wrong with the way we made our decision, you can apply to the Administrative Court for judicial review. You do not have to complain to us before doing this. You should be aware that there are time limits in the judicial review processes.
You should seek independent legal advice before pursuing this route.
You can reapply to the CCRC. If you have some significant new evidence or argument
which has not been considered at trial, on appeal or in any earlier applications to the CCRC you can make a reapplication. You will need to complete a new form to tell us what is new.
You also need to tell us why it wasn’t included in your earlier application.
Applying to us does not give you an automatic right to have deportation proceedings suspended. If we refer your case for an appeal, then your deportation may be stopped until the appeal is finished. If you are deported after you have applied, we can review your case. You must provide us with a contact address or email address to do this.
If you already have an appeal pending (i.e. you are waiting for your first appeal to come to court), we cannot review your case and we will write to you to explain this.
If you have not tried appeal in the normal way through the courts, we will treat your case differently. This is because the CCRC was created to deal cases where people have used up their normal rights of appeal. We can only consider “no appeal” cases if there are special reasons why you cannot appeal to the court. These special reasons are known as “Exceptional Circumstances”. If there are special reasons why, we can look at the case even though there has been no earlier attempt to appeal but these are very rare. In most cases we will have to tell the “no appeal” applicant that we cannot consider their case.
Those applicants are told to approach the courts to start an appeal in the normal way.
Details on how we deal with cases where the applicant has not already appealed (or applied for leave to appeal) is set out in the Commission’s Formal Policy on ‘Exceptional Circumstances’.
We call an application that is not your first application for a particular offence a re-application. For us to consider a re-application it must contain something new. If all the points that you make in your reapplication have already been considered, we will write to you to explain why we cannot accept your reapplication. That decision will be final.
This applies if your points have already been made in an earlier application to us, or at trial or on appeal. The CCRC can only deal with convictions and sentences from the criminal courts of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland and from the Military Court and the Service Civilian Court.
This means that we cannot deal with immigration law, civil law and ASBOs. Scotland has its own Commission, the SCCRC.
The Miscarriages of Justice Support Service (MJSS) is a specialist service provided by RCJ Advice. RCJ Advice is part of Citizens’ Advice. MJSS provide free, confidential and impartial advice and support for survivors of wrongful convictions.
They can provide advice and support in a number of areas including:
– finding somewhere to live
– establishing income / training
– applying for National Insurance credits
– registering with a GP and getting healthcare and counselling
– opening a bank account and budgeting
– support for family relationship issues
– finding a solicitor to help with compensation claims
They can also help with things like writing letters, filling in forms, making and attending appointments.
Contact the MJSS by emailing: MJSS@rcjadvice.org.uk
Or by writing to: RCJ Advice, The Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
You can read more in our About us section. There is detailed information about the CCRC in a series of documents on our website. These are called formal policies. You can download them by going to our casework policies page. You can also get them by writing to us.