The transfer would see nearly all of circumstances heard by a choose alone, apart from essentially the most severe or these within the “public interest”.
The change is anticipated to be formally introduced by the federal government subsequent week.
A memo despatched by David Lammy to fellow ministers, seen by the Instances, says there’s “no right” to jury trials within the UK and that drastic motion was wanted to chop the backlog of circumstances within the crown courts, nearing 80,000.
A spokesman for the federal government confirmed modifications are coming quickly to cope with the backlog.
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Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden has spoken to the Politics Hub about experiences that jury trials can be scrapped for all however essentially the most severe circumstances
Extra on Ministry Of Justice
He stated he “wouldn’t be surprised if my colleagues at the [Ministry of Justice] are looking at perhaps some radical ways they could reduce that backlog”.
McFadden stated that backlogs within the courts system are getting too lengthy and never displaying any signal of shortening.
He referenced the saying that “justice delayed is justice denied” – implying {that a} non-jury trial is healthier than no trial in any respect.
In the summertime, retired Court docket of Attraction choose, Sir Brian Leveson, made suggestions to authorities, together with a suggestion to finish jury trials for a lot of severe offences, saying they may very well be handled by a choose alone or a choose with two magistrates.
This could have been achieved by creating a brand new intermediate court docket, known as the Crown Court docket Bench Division, sitting between magistrates courts and crown courts.
The plans within the leaked doc go additional than that, with options that offences prone to obtain a sentence of as much as 5 years can be heard by judges alone.
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When Mr Lammy took up his place in September, it’s understood he noticed the courts as his ‘disaster’ to sort out, together with his predecessor, Shabana Mahmood, having been seen to have gripped the immediacy of the jail overcrowding disaster.
Sir Brian instructed a choose and two magistrates ought to hear circumstances with a most sentence of three years.
These measures can be extremely controversial, with the chief of the Conservatives Kemi Badenoch saying the transfer “risks fairness, undermines public trust and erodes the very foundation of our justice system”.
The Legal Bar Affiliation stated the plans would “eviscerate the jury trial as we know it”.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson stated: “No final decision has been taken by government.
“Now we have been clear there’s a disaster within the courts, inflicting ache and anguish to victims – with 78,000 circumstances within the backlog and rising – which would require daring motion to place proper.”
