David Lammy has this afternoon set out his plans in parliament to drastically reduce the use of jury trials in England and Wales. With the backlog of cases due to be heard in courts already at 78,000, and heading for 100,000, the Justice Secretary believes that only radical solutions can tackle the ‘courts emergency’. He has announced that jury trials will be scrapped for crimes carrying a likely sentence of less than three years. However, the changes will not apply to more serious offences such as rape, murder and robbery.
Lammy believes his plans are proportionate, given the scale of the problem
Lammy is depicting himself as the heroic defender of juries; saving, not scrapping, an ancient English tradition. In an interview with today’s Times, he says:
Magna Carta was a protest against state failure. If its authors saw the delays in our courts today, they would not urge us to cling rigidly to tradition. They would demand action.
One can only wonder what the barons of King John would make of such claims. His plans go further than those suggested by Brian Leveson in his July review. But Lammy believes they are proportionate, given the scale of the problem: ‘There are a group of defendants in “either-way” cases who are playing the system, who effectively leave pleading guilty as late as possible,’ he told the paper. He cites precedent for curbing jury trials, noting that until 2013 they were often used in defamation cases and that in the 1930s they were used in civil ones.
Ahead of the debate in parliament, the Justice Secretary undertook the morning media round to sell his proposals. Unfortunately, he ended up facing multiple questions about escaped prisoners instead and was forced to reveal that 12 inmates had been freed in error since his last statement in the House three weeks ago. He will have to hope his handling of parliamentary business today is significantly better than that last outing.
As foreign secretary, Lammy was the minister whose Chagos deal technically saw the end of the ‘empire on which the sun never sets’. As Justice Secretary, he could be the man who ends centuries of legal history.
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