How we review your case

Key to the diagram

1 Is it a valid application?

We can only deal with an application where

• it arises from a criminal conviction in England, Wales or Northern Ireland; and
•  (other than in exceptional circumstances) you have already gone through the appeal process.

So we could not take your application on if, for example, it related to an issue of civil law, or if it arose from a conviction under the Scottish legal system. Scotland has its own separate Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (new window) which you can apply to after a Scottish criminal conviction

If an application is not valid, we are obliged to reject it and do no further work. The case is closed at this point.

Please note also the limitations on our legal role in dealing with applications. 

When a new valid application arrives at our offices a Commission Member has a look at it to see how long it is likely to take to do the work needed to review the case.  We call this our screening process. At this stage we also try to identify which public bodies (like the police, courts, and Crown Prosecution Service) hold information that we might need. We instruct these bodies to keep their files until we are ready to begin work on the case.

Cases that are likely to take only a modest amount of time to review go in a different queue to cases that will take a longer time.  We will normally deal with these cases involving a modest time commitment more quickly.

There is no difference in the standards of thoroughness and care between any case which we deal with. This is regardless of whether we expect that a case will take a long time or a short time for us to deal with.

Once a case is allocated to a caseworker (usually called a Case Review Manager or a Case Worker) the review begins.  At this stage the caseworker will examine the issues raised in the application, as well as any issues the caseworker spots, to see if there might be anything that could give grounds for referring the case.    In most cases we do all the work on a case ourselves, but we do have the power to appoint an investigating officer (usually from the police) to carry out investigations for us. 

When the review is complete, the caseworker presents the information they have gathered to a decision maker.  This can be either a single Commissioners or a committee of at least three Commissioners.  (A committee of three Commissioners must meet before any case can be sent to the Court of Appeal.) The decision maker(s) will not have been involved in the work done on the case but will be given all the relevant information. 

• If the decision maker(s) take the view that there are grounds on which the case can be referred then a final Statement of Reasons will be issued and the case is sent to the Court of Appeal.  This is the end of our involvement.
• If the decision maker(s) reach a provisional view that there are no grounds to refer the case then a provisional Statement of Reasons will be issued.   

When we reach a provisional view that there are no grounds to refer a case, the person who has made the application to us will normally be given 20 working days to respond to the provisional view. It may be that the applicant can point out something which would make us change our mind. 

• If no response is received within that time then a final decision will be made and a Statement of Reasons setting out the formal basis for our decision will be issued. The case will then be closed. 
• If a response is received then we will consider that response before a final decision is made.

The final decision will usually be made by the same decision maker(s) who reached the provisional view.  The decision maker(s) will reconsider their provisional view, bearing in mind the applicant’s response, and make their final decision.

• If the decision maker(s) decide that there are grounds on which the case can be referred a final Statement of Reasons will be issued, explaining our reasons for this, and the case is sent to the Court of Appeal for a new appeal to be heard.  This is the end of our involvement.
• If the decision maker(s) decide that there are no grounds to refer the case a final Statement of Reasons will be issued, explaining our reasons for this, and the case will be closed.  A new application can, however, subsequently be sent to us if there is something new for us to consider.