Under a shake-up of the legal system, it transpires that juries are to be scrapped in all cases except murder, rape and manslaughter. The majority of cases will be heard by a judge alone in new plans pushed by Justice Secretary David Lammy – in a move that goes much further than the suggestions of Sir Brian Leveson, who reviewed the UK’s criminal courts this year. Good heavens…
As reported by the Times, a memo sent by Lammy to ministers and civil servants insisted there was ‘no right’ to jury trials in the UK – before adding that radical action was necessary to slash the justice backlog in England and Wales. The Deputy Prime Minister wants to create a new tier of court where serious criminal offences will be tried by judges alone. One of Leveson’s recommendations had been to set up an ‘intermediate court’ where a judge would sit with two lay magistrates – however Lammy wants to remove the lay aspect from some trials. In the Labour MP’s briefing document, only rape, murder, manslaughter and ‘public interest’ cases would appear before juries. ‘Lower tier’ offences would be heard by a single judge.
The Justice Secretary’s proposals require primary legislation to be passed before they can be enacted – with this planned for early next year. Not that the legal profession is likely to let this change take place without a fight. Senior figures in the world of criminal justice have slammed the plan as ‘the biggest assault on our system of liberty in 800 years’. Going further, some have likened the proposals to a ‘star chamber’ justice system, in a nod towards the infamous Star Chamber that sat between the 15th and 17th centuries and was associated with secretive rulings. The chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, Riel Karmy-Jones KC, fumed: ‘This is beginning to smell like a co-ordinated campaign against public justice.’ Crikey!
But the government is concerned about backlogs – with the total figure nearing 80,000 and showing no signs of dropping. Lammy’s plans are also expected to include removing the automatic right to appeal against convictions, while magistrates will see their sentencing powers increased from the top prison term of six months to 24 months. How interesting…
It’s quite a turnaround for the current Justice Secretary who in 2020 posted on social media that: ‘Trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea.’ How times change, eh?
Comments