ABSTRACT
The establishment in 1986 of a national, independent prosecution service transformed the architecture of criminal justice in England and Wales. Association of Chief Police Officers reported to the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure in 1979: When, and for what, legal advice is sought is very dependent on local policy, the nature of the case and the complexity of the issues involved. The Criminal Law Bill had been an unwieldy composite forged hastily under the press of parliamentary time. Based on a report by the Law Commission, a Conspiracy and Criminal Law Reform Bill had been promoted as a legislative priority in May 1976 by the Lord President of the Council. There was, the committee noted, another form of criminal justice on offer in the United Kingdom, the Scottish system, where the Lord Advocate and his staff, the procurators fiscal, made decisions and conducted prosecutions quite separately from the police.
