1.1.4 – Rights in context
Last week, the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary, David Lammy, announced plans to significantly reform the justice system. The most striking of the proposed changes is the plan to remove jury trials for a significant number of cases. Jury trials have been a fundamental part of the English justice system since the reign of Henry II. The concept of having an individual’s fate decided by a “jury of their peers” has several merits. They can increase public confidence in prosecutions and help prevent accusations of state interference in the criminal justice system. The jury system provides a check and balance against the risk of state abuse of the judicial system—something routinely observed in dictatorships and illiberal democracies.
David Lammy argues that the justice system in England and Wales (justice is devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland) is facing a crisis. In particular, there is a huge backlog in the court system, with around 78,000 cases currently outstanding, many scheduled as late as 2029 or 2030.
At present, not all criminal cases go before a jury. There are three categories of offence and two main types of court:
Summary: Minor offences that can only be tried in a Magistrates’ Court. These trials are heard without a jury.
Either-Way: Mid-level offences that can be tried in either a Magistrates’ Court or a Crown Court.
Indictable: The most serious offences that can only be tried in a Crown Court and decided by a jury.
At present, around 95% of all criminal cases do not go before a jury. However, trials with juries tend to be significantly slower, and Lammy argues that this is a key reason for the current backlog. Under Lammy’s plans, jury trials would be reserved only for the most serious offences, such as murder, rape, and manslaughter. Under the proposed plans, any offence for which the likely sentence is less than three years would automatically be directed to a new tier of courts, nicknamed “swift courts,” which would operate with a single judge and without a jury.
Supporters of the plan argue it will reduce court backlogs, with judge-led decisions being more transparent with the reasoning provided. However, critics of the plan argue that the right to a jury trial is fundamental to the rule of law, and that the jury system is not the root cause of the backlog, which they say s due to a lack of funding under the previous Conservative government.
Embarrassingly for Lammy, his previous opposition to the removal of jury trials was highlighted by Robert Jenrick, who noted Lammy’s previous comments when he said, “Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea. You do not fix the backlog with trials that are widely perceived as unfair”.
As the proposals were not included in Labour’s manifesto, the government risks challenge from the House of Lords who, traditionally, have acted as a bulwark for civil liberties. This was seen in 2008, when they blocked Gordon Brown’s plan to allow terror suspects to be detained for 42 days. It will be interesting to see how the Lords approaches a change that, to many, strikes as the heart of the justice system.