‘Post-decision Decision-making’

Abstract

This chapter examines the Criminal Cases Review Commission's policy on post-decision decision-making, focusing on what happens in cases when the Commission has decided there are no grounds for referral but where the applicant comes back with further information or a new application to try to persuade the Commission that its decision was wrong. The chapter first describes the legitimacy of the Commission's post-decision decision-making before discussing its instrumental decision-making based on referrals, judicial review, and procedural justice. It then shows how the Commission responds to ‘further submissions’ or ‘reapplications’, and how they provide applicants with an opportunity to have their cases reconsidered. It also analyses the empirical and theoretical drivers that underpin the Commission's decision field, the new ‘frames’ that make it possible to redefine cases in further submissions and reapplications, and how developments in the surround affects the Commission's decision frame.