Jury Trials to be Scrapped for Most Crimes
Jury trials for most crimes are set to be scrapped in an effort to clear the massive court backlog under proposals to be unveiled next month by David Lammy. The Telegraph has more.
The Justice Secretary, attempting to tackle chronic court backlogs, is to propose that juries will only decide murder, rape, manslaughter and other serious offences carrying possible prison sentences of more than five years.
Lone judges will preside over trials of other serious offences meriting sentences of up to five years, removing the rights of thousands of defendants to be heard before a jury.
Mr Lammy will also increase magistrates’ powers. He will broaden their remit from offences carrying a maximum sentence of one year to two years, further eroding the right to a jury trial.
The plans go further than the recommendations suggested by Sir Brian Leveson in a report commissioned by Shabana Mahmood, Mr Lammy’s predecessor.
He had proposed that there should be an intermediate court comprising a judge and two magistrates for mid-range offences.
The reforms, expected to be outlined next week, put Mr Lammy on a collision course with the legal profession.
Suella Braverman, a former home secretary and attorney general, said: “This is a serious assault on our liberty. Trial by your peers is a fundamental right in our democracy, and goes to the core of who we are as a nation.”
Riel Karmy-Jones KC, the Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), said removing jury trials would undermine “a fundamental feature of the British constitution, and the British justice system, for over 800 years”.
She added: “The erosion of the right to jury trial will break the increasingly thin connection between the state and ordinary people, and risks undermining social cohesion and trust in the criminal justice system. Once that trust disappears, fears of tyrannical governments increase and the faith in justice evaporates for good.”
Mr Lammy has previously been a strong defender of the jury system, declaring when it was under threat during the Covid pandemic that “jury trials are a fundamental party of our democratic settlement”.
He added: “The Government need to pull their finger out and acquire empty buildings across the country to make sure these [trials] can happen in a way that is safe… you don’t fix the backlog with trials that are widely perceived as unfair.” …
Mr Lammy wrote to ministers to say that there was “no right” to jury trials in the UK, and that drastic action was needed to cut the backlog of cases in crown courts in England and Wales.
It is anticipated that as many as 75% of trials will be heard by a judge sitting alone instead of a jury under his proposals, contained in a briefing document headed “sensitive and official”.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The Labour algorithm:
Corruption x Incompetence = wickedness.
Calamity lammy is the last person who should be allowed to tinker with the most ancient cornerstone of modern civilization.
There is some merit in removing juries from lesser crime, from a cost and speed perspective. You would need to balance how to build better less bias in the Judiciary, which is not obvious.
Factoring in what my teenage son just told me of black people being typically 10 times more biased against white people, not sure me being a white male, I would get a fair trial with over representation on a jury?
Or a fair trial with a Muslim judge, because this is a perfect prelude to the Stealth Imposition of SHARIA LAW:
“A person taken to Islamic court for breaking a Sharia law appears before a qadi, or JUDGE, and he (or she) is given a chance to defend himself and face his accuser. Decisions are rendered by the JUDGE, NOT A JURY. Punishment is supposed to be meted out by the JUDGE under terms that are clearly defined by the legal school used.”
“Evidence has traditionally been in the form of oral testimony, with the credibility of the testimony often weighed on the STATUS and REPUTATION OF THE WITNESS. Morals charges usually require witnesses. In conservative Islamic courts women were barred from courtrooms and have to testify through a special window or by closed circuit television. Their testimony is technically worth HALF THAT OF A MAN.”
Magistrates sentences can be appealed to the crown court, surely that should be sufficient. It just seems to me like this Fabian government is further undermining law and order in order to create more chaos than they have in the post war period.
The jury system exists simply because bias in judges is inevitable.
“There is some merit in removing juries from lesser crime…”
That already exists – Magistrates Courts.
Justice is supposed to be fair and balanced, not fast and cheap.
The new mantra of Calamity Dave – far-left judges to decide the fate of perpetrators far-right thought- and word-crimes. Doubleplusgood all round.
Yet another authoritarian policy that was not in Labour’s manifesto. This should not be allowed.
So much for the progressives idea of Human Rights.
But as I’ve said before, it’s strange that people from the legal profession can enact laws in which can benefit their profession, but in any other area it would be considered a conflict of interest.
Lawyers should be forced to give up their profession forever if they want to be law makers.
This is the most dangerous move by the elites so far.
The potential implications especially for freedom of speech are disastrous
That’s right because posting hurty words and strong opinions on social media are “less serious” crimes… which shouldn’t be crimes in the first place.
Yes. Juries are actual democracy, where ordinary citizens decide independent of the State.
Without a jury the whole process from police, prosecutor, judge and judgement is an instrument of the State.
Actually why bother with a trial?
The administration of justice could be speeded up far more efficiently by examining the race and social status of the accused.
They could just follow the guidelines laid down by the Bolsheviks:
We are not fighting against single individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. Do not look in materials you have gathered for evidence that a suspect acted or spoke against the Soviet authorities. The first question you should ask him is what class he belongs to, what is his origin, education, profession. These questions should determine his fate. This is the essence of the Red Terror. (Martin Latsis, deputy chief of the Cheka, 1918)
Verdict first, trial later
More often than not, the trial was purely for propaganda.
They could have just shot the accused but having a trial was often more expedient. A good show trial was an efficient way to spread the message: “we can do whatever we like”.
He looks like a right muppet with that wig on. How many more wrecking balls are Labour going to launch at the British people before they’re booted out? Reform are really going to have their work cut out bringing a semblance of normality back to the country after these jokers are finished with their toxic shitshow; ”There’s a line every free nation must never cross, and Britain is edging towards it with its eyes wide open. David Lammy wants to take a knife to the oldest safeguard in our system: the right of an ordinary man to stand before ordinary people and have his fate decided by peers, not by a state official with a crowded diary and a political brief. He calls it reform. It’s nothing of the sort. It’s the quiet shift from a country where power is checked to a country where power decides. Lammy dresses this up as housekeeping – a neat administrative fix for a backlog his own party helped cause. But he knows full well this isn’t about courtrooms or timetables. If he wanted to clear the backlog, he could fund the courts, hire judges, rebuild the CPS, and reopen the buildings his party… Read more »
I didn’t think that we could have a government worse than Blair’s, but Starmer’s government is far worse.
Indeed.
Lucy Connolly would not have been found guilty by a jury.
Well, given that a jury could take just a few minutes to acquit Ricky Jones (the Labour councillor who made a throat-cutting gesture at a pro-Palestine rally in Walthamstow), what hope remains for the jury system?
It used to be said, apparently, if called up for jury service, one of the ways to avoid selection for a case was to turn up in a suit, with a copy of the Daily Telegraph tucked under one’s arm. I guess that translates that juries avoid anyone perceived as holding “far right” views, so you’d be left with twelve angry men/women/other who’d be determined to find Lucy Connolly guilty.
No system is perfect but I think it’s much harder to control randomly selected members of the public than sinecured judges.
From what I know about the Jones case I would have voted to acquit as I’m a free speech absolutist, much as his reported actions were loathsome. A jury may well have acquitted Connolly.
Yes, but knowing someone who was murdered in the way Jones acted out puts a boundary on what you may term free speech.
I tend to subscribe to the US Supreme Court’s interpretation of their First Amendment when it comes to a workable free speech law – imminent lawless action.
“Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action”
I don’t think what Jones did meets that test. The sky has not fallen in over in the USA, in fact IMO they are politically in better shape than we are.
Reform and Trump are fascists
This was meant to be sarcasm
So haven’t you got the keys to type [/sarc]?
I thought it was obvious. I post a fair bit here, and see the same names all the time. I don’t think any of the regulars would believe I think Reform and Trump are fascists.
You know there’s people on here would downvote you for omitting a full stop?🤭
It’s like my school reports- could do better!
Less ambiguous perhaps, expressed as: And Reform and Trump are the Fascists?
Exactly
Now we’re really done for
No, first they need our “Implied Consent” by the public’s passive acceptance of their outright Stalinist Attack on democracy, equivalent to a Communist Coup d’Etat.
WE DO NOT CONSENT.
WE DO NOT CONSENT.
WE DO NOT CONSENT.
The activist and ideological leanings of the majority of Britain’s judiciary are self-evident, so this can only help the Government speed up political prosecutions for wrongthink and reduce jury judgements in favour of the thought-crime transgressor.
I did think that Professor Betz was seriously over-egging it with his ‘coming civil war’ narrative, but my optimism appears misplaced.
No, Communist Lammy & Stalin Starmer, you have NO RIGHT to scrap jury trials as a prelude to Stalinist Kangaroo courts.
WE DO NOT CONSENT.
WE DO NOT CONSENT.
WE DO NOT CONSENT.
In the time of King Alfred the Great, more than A THOUSAND YEARS AGO, “the king was an elected position—not a hereditary one. Thus the Anglo-Saxon laws of the land were created by their consent. King Alfred’s civil laws became the root of all English and American common law, TRIAL BY JURY, and habeas corpus.”
And Clause 39 of the Magna Carta of 1215 guarantees the right to TRIAL BY JURY:
“No free man is to be arrested, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any other way ruined, nor will we go against him or send against him, except by THE LAWFUL JUDGMENT OF HIS PEERS, or by THE LAW OF THE LAND.”
It begs the question: will they also accelerate the construction o f more prisons to cope with faster trials? Despite the drawbacks of defendants waiting for trials (not necessarily on remand) for a while, it must slow down the demand for places inside at present. Have they thought it through?
I don’t accept that the only motivation is clearing the backlog. That’s just an excuse to yet another removal of a fundamental right that empowers individuals and not the state – something that totalitarians like Labour cannot stand.
Absolutely spot on.
Don’t reduce the number of trials by jury – Petitions
212 signatures, closed in August.
I think the FSU should write a new one a publicise it.
So, Lammy’s proposals is:
The left wing Establishment makes the Laws
The left wing, Activist Judiciary interprets the Laws
The left wing “woke” Police apply the Laws
The left wing Activist Judiciary decides the verdict
The people are completely shut out of the process.
Sounds rather like a Dictatorship to me.
Yes, just like the Marxist Dictatorship of Lula in Brazil, propped up by his Judicial Lackey, the Demonic Judge Moraes, both trying their best to emulate Putin’s treatment of Alexei Navalny by using assassination attempts and lawfare against The People’s Patriot President of Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro.
It’s what Communists do, and both Lula the Gnome & Demonic Moraes should be in prison.
The sight of this oaf in a judge’s wig just about sums it up.
Here’s an idea
Instead of useless biased judge’s holding up courts, why not do away with judge’s and magistrates and have juries cleat the backlog. They wouldn’t mess about fine details and might dispense some justice
So easier to censor free speech absent the option fir trial by jury.
We need a peasants’ revolt.
Best build more jails – and fast.
AI is supposed to be pretty good. Perhaps we should be trialling AI to adjudicate on selected trials in parallel with jury trials.