Don't assume that junking juries will speed up justice

Times

15 hours ago

Proposals will be unveiled this week that could mean crimes now decided by juries are heard instead by a judge with two magistrates in a radical change to a centuries-old cornerstone of our justice system.
No one would deny the present crisis in criminal justice. Delays are at record levels: nearly 80,000 cases are waiting to be heard and, without reform, the backlog is predicted to reach 100,000 by 2029.
In December, Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, appointed Sir Brian Leveson, a highly experienced former Court of Appeal judge, to propose measures for reform. He was specifically tasked with exploring the idea of a new intermediate court between magistrates and the Crown Court, consisting of a district judge sitting with two magistrates.
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This new court could lead to jury trial being scrapped for thousands of middle-ranking offences. At present defendants are allowed the choice of being tried by a judge and jury or by magistrates for such crimes as theft, common assault with a racial or religious aggravation, dangerous driving, some offences of criminal damage and drug possession. Defendants in fraud cases could also lose the right to jury trial.
With certain offences, Leveson is expected to give defendants the right to ask for a judge-only trial. And if there is strong public disapproval of a crime, some may do just that. But many would surely prefer to wait and chance their arm with a jury and the higher prospect of acquittal. Meanwhile, lower-level offenders, whose crimes carry perhaps up to two years in jail, would lose the choice of jury trial altogether.
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Is the state of the system now so dire that eroding the right to trial by one's peers is justified? Many believe it is when weighed against the injustice of serious crimes going unpunished through lengthy delay.
But judges are already privately voicing concerns. A new court will cost money and training and need more district judges, magistrates and criminal lawyers who are prepared to do this doubtless lesser-remunerated work. Juries give no reasons for their verdicts; jury room deliberations are sacrosanct. Non-jury courts, however, will have to do so. There may be endless appeals, fresh delays and costs, defeating the whole object.
Instead of jettisoning centuries-old rights, the existing system could be better funded to provide more judge-time and sittings. After all, the chronic lack of this, exacerbated by Covid, is what has led to the present crisis.
Either way, more funding will be needed. But if the sacred cow of jury trial is to be sacrificed to expediency, the cull must be worth it.
Frances Gibb is a former Times legal editor and host of The Lord Chancellors: Where Politics meets Justice podcast