Sir Brian Leveson, who carried out the impartial assessment of the courts system that guided the federal government’s determination to cut back on jury trials, has recommended there isn’t any various.
Chatting with Sky’s Politics Hub programme, the retired decide argued that by limiting jury trials, Justice Secretary David Lammy is “aiming to try to solve the systemic problems” in courts.
He instructed Sky presenter Ali Fortescue: “I am a great believer in trial by jury, but trials with a jury take very much longer than trials conducted otherwise than with 12 people who are utterly unused to criminal procedure and criminal evidence.
“So my concern is that we have to get via circumstances faster.”
He said that it was likely a “20% time saving would end result” from the move, although he thinks that “an ideal deal extra” could be saved.
Requested in regards to the criticism right now of the choice, Sir Brian stated: “I’m gaining no pleasure from it, but what I say to all of them is ‘If not this, then what?’ How do we reduce the backlog so the victims and witnesses get their day in court within a reasonable time?”
He argued that “we should use our resources proportionately to the gravity of the offending”, and “there are some cases which, to my mind, do not merit or require a trial by jury”.
Sir Brian stated that some jurors he had spoken to stated it was “worthwhile”. However he added: “They’ve given up two weeks of their life, sometimes without any pay except the small remuneration that they receive from the state doing jury service, and they’ve been trying cases which shouldn’t merit their attention”.
Requested if he would desire a trial by jury if he had been wrongly accused of theft, Sir Brian stated: “If I’d been wrongly accused of theft, I’d be perfectly happy for a judge to decide I’d been wrongly accused of theft.”
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Jury trials to be scrapped
Extra broadly, he stated: “I don’t see how you’re going to bring down the backlog without more money, more sitting days, greater efficiency, and speedier trials…
“There aren’t the judges, there aren’t the courtroom workers, extra considerably there aren’t the advocates.”
He said that the justice system had never been in such a “calamitous” state.
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‘The reforms are about equity’
Courts minister Sarah Sackman additionally defended the choice on Tuesday’s Politics Hub. She acknowledged that jury trials had been “a success story”, and “a cornerstone of British justice and will remain so after today’s plans”.
However she added: “What’s not such a success story is the fact that we inherited record and rising backlogs in our courts.
“At the moment the quantity begins at 80,000 circumstances, and it is on the rise – on account of hit 100,000 by 2028.”
That leaves victims “waiting for their case to be heard”. She argued that the measures introduced on Tuesday had been “a set of reforms that will restore confidence in our justice system, get those delays down, and indeed preserve jury trials for the most serious cases”.
Ms Sackman added that “right now in our system, 90% of cases [are] being heard without a jury in our magistrates”, which is “fair, robust justice”.
“Part of fairness is about the swiftness we need to deliver swifter justice for victims,” she stated.
“What’s not fair is a victim of crime being told today that she needs to wait until 2029, 2030 for her day in court.”
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‘Swifter justice for victims’
The minister gave an instance of what’s going to change, saying: “Supposing a defendant is accused of stealing a bottle of whisky.
“Is it proper that we permit the defendant to insist on a slower, costlier jury trial in the identical queue because the sufferer of rape, making her wait and in some circumstances, justice not being served?
“That’s the choice that we’ve made today.”
However the minister refused to say how a lot this would scale back the backlog by.
