Swift Justice or Swift Injustice? The Case Against Scrapping Jury Trials
The UK government has announced a series of reforms that will significantly reduce the role of trial by jury in England and Wales, in a bid to tackle the ever-growing criminal court backlogs. David Lammy, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, announced that jury trials for crimes that carry a likely sentence of less than three years will be scrapped, but will be guaranteed for serious offences including murder, rape and people trafficking. The reforms will also include the creation of new judge-only “swift courts” within the crown court system. Lammy says these measures are “necessary” to tackle the justice crisis, but is it right to curtail a centuries old practice intended to ensure fairness and trust in the legal system, in the name of efficiency and swift justice?
The trial by jury system is rooted in the late Anglo-Saxon period and was notably formalized in the 1215 Magna Carta, playing a central role in criminal trials in England and Wales ever since. The system, in which 12 randomly selected members of the public weigh up evidence to decide the verdict, has been described as “the lamp that shows that freedom lives” by Lord Devlin, a senior judge. Of the 1.3m average prosecutions in England Wales every year, only 10% go before a Crown Court, with only three of ten resulting in trials. Despite its significance, trial by jury makes up only a fraction of criminal cases the courts handle. But with the Crown Court backlog growing to a new record of nearly 80,000 cases, and with wait times for trial dates reaching up to four years, the government and supporters of the reforms are convinced changes would improve justice.
The government has based its plans upon Brian Leveson’s recent review of the Criminal Courts. Leveson suggests the reforms would save 9,000 sitting days in the Crown Courts, and the backlog could be cleared within 5 years if properly implemented. Judge-alone trials are expected to take 20% less time than trials by jury, with David Ford, National Chair of the Magistrates’ Association describing the change as a “vote of confidence in the nation’s 15,000 magistrates”. In a bid to free up Crown Court time, magistrates would also receive the power to hand down sentences of up to 18 months, with a possibility of this increasing to two years “if needed”. While by no means providing “swift justice” the effects of these proposals would seemingly bring the backlog down faster and more efficiently than before.
But, critics argue that the reforms would provide only marginal gains and cause wider issues. A survey of the Criminal Bar Association members saw 88.5% oppose the creation of the new crown court bench division, and 78.2% oppose the removal of juries from fraud trials. Furthermore, in restricting jury trials, the government would save only £31 million, 0.2% of the MoJ budget. The Institute for Government warned that these changes would increase risks of wrongful convictions and damage trust in the justice system, an impact that would likely end up costing the government more overall, than it would save. There could be increased appeals, challenges of judicial bias and damaged public confidence following non-jury trials. Campaigners, such as Matt Foot, co-director of the charity Appeal, concur, suggesting that reduced jury rights at a time when the police and courts have problems of “racism and homophobia” would be unjustified, and could cause miscarriages of justice for minorities. Deputy legal director at Justice, Tyrone Steele, echoes this, describing jury trials as “ensuring confidence in our criminal courts”. In implementing these reforms, the government risks curtailing fairness and a core, historical liberty that legal practitioners, charities, and the public confide in, for only marginal gains. The reforms also fail to address the root cause of the backlog. In focusing on Leveson’s proposals for jury trials, the government has ignored his calls for major improvements to court infrastructure and digital case management. Likewise, Foot names “a lack of funding and lawyers” as the primary cause for the backlog growth. Budget cuts, court closures and the pandemic have almost doubled the court backlog since 2019, and with the government looking in the wrong direction, this is unlikely to change.
Ultimately, at a time when the government is so unpopular, the proposed reforms to the justice system do little to deliver justice and also ensure public confidence in its ability to do so. Already making up such a small proportion of cases, reducing jury trials would deliver only marginal gains against a loss of public confidence and risk of exacerbated inequality. While the government has recognised the need for change, it should shift its focus to investing in the infrastructure of the justice system itself rather than cutting out such significant parts of it in order to ensure a balance of fairness and efficiency.
Trial by jury article Adam Nealon
