When Justice Asks Too Much
Why victims need structural reform,
not token change
The publication of Part Two of Sir Brian Leveson’s Independent Review of the Criminal Courts confirms what many victims already know from experience: the justice system is not simply under strain - it is asking people to endure more than it reasonably should.
The Review sets out more than 130 recommendations to address delays and inefficiencies in a system described as being “on the brink of collapse.” Many of these proposals are necessary. But the central message is unavoidable: efficiency measures alone will not repair a system that is structurally failing those it exists to serve.
From a survivor’s perspective, delay is not an abstract operational problem. It is lived in years of uncertainty, repeated adjournments, poor communication, and the constant requirement to keep trauma active while waiting for a process that may never conclude.
Justice, for many, is no longer something that feels accessible or protective. It becomes something to endure.
At Make Yourself Heard, we hear the same patterns again and again. People enter the justice system expecting accountability and clarity, only to find fragmentation, silence, and shifting goalposts. Many disengage not because they lack strength, but because the system demands sustained emotional labour without offering certainty, care, or meaningful progress in return.
Leveson’s warning that there is no “silver bullet” matters. A system weakened by decades of underinvestment cannot be fixed through piecemeal reform. Isolated efficiency drives, or short-term funding injections, risk becoming tokenistic if they are not part of a wider, coordinated package of structural change.
What is needed now is honesty about scale.
Real reform means confronting the fact that the justice system has been operating beyond its limits for too long - and that the consequences of this failure are borne disproportionately by victims. It means recognising that delay is not neutral. It causes harm. It shapes outcomes. It pushes people out.
Court reform is essential, but it cannot stand alone. Victim experience is shaped just as much by policing decisions, CPS communication, and the lack of consistency across agencies. Without alignment across the system, reform risks becoming reactive - addressing one pressure point while another quietly collapses.
At its core, this is a question of trust.
If victims are asked to report, to engage, and to relive traumatic events over extended periods, the system must be capable of holding that responsibility. When it cannot, it must change - not incrementally, but fundamentally.
The question facing Government and Parliament now is not whether reform is needed. It is whether they are willing to act at the scale required.
Because without decisive, system-wide change, more victims will reach the same conclusion in silence: that justice, as it currently stands, asks too much - and offers too little in return.
