My computer is evil, so this will be brief.
“Justice secretary wants jury trials scrapped except in most serious cases”, the BBC reports:
Justice Secretary David Lammy is proposing to massively restrict the ancient right to a jury trial by only guaranteeing it for defendants facing rape, murder, manslaughter or other cases passing a public interest test.
An internal government briefing, produced by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for all other Whitehall departments, confirms plans to create a new tier of jury-less courts in England and Wales.
The new courts would deal with most crimes currently considered by juries in Crown Court.
But the MoJ said no final decision had been taken by the government.
The plans, obtained by BBC News, show that Lammy, who is also deputy prime minister, wants to ask Parliament to end jury trials for defendants who would be jailed for up to five years.
The proposals are an attempt to end unprecedented delays and backlogs in courts, and do not apply to Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Here is what David Lammy said about juries in 2020:
David Lammy
@DavidLammy
Jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea.The Government need to pull their finger out and acquire empty public buildings across the country to make sure these can happen in a way that is safe.
12:20 pm · 20 Jun 2020
Juries are not perfect – we can all think of cases where the innocent have been found guilty by juries, and the guilty found not guilty, BUT – having cases decided by establishment judges is worse, far worse.
Trial by jury is one of the key things that set this island apart from the Continent – some “mainland Europe” nations did, at one time, have local juries of ordinary people, but this was crushed by the rise of the Medieval version of Roman Law (a very different thing from what Roman Law had been under the Republic – or even under the early Emperors), it would be a terrible tragedy to lose this.
“But the delays, the backlog…” – the delays are not caused by juries, they are caused by an institutionally messed up legal system, and that system can move very fast if it wants to – for example the “legal process” against “right wingers” after the protests of the summer of 2024 (basically drum head “justice”) happened very fast indeed.
The legal system is slow and builds up long delays – because it wants to, not because of juries.
Do what USED to be done in Scotland (sadly it no longer is done) set a maximum number of days between someone being charged and the start of the trial, and a maximum number of days the trial can last.
If the number of days is exceeded – the accused walks and may not be charged again for the same offense.
Then the legal officials would get-their-finger-out.
“The plans, obtained by BBC News, show that Lammy, who is also deputy prime minister, wants to ask Parliament to end jury trials for defendants who would be jailed for up to five years.”
I assume that “Thoughtcrime” and “Opposition to the Will of the State” will have sentences of less than 5 years.
Subotai Bahadur
Paul – re. the old Scottish system, there is unfortunately a lot of scope there for two tier justice, i.e. anything anti-government gets fast tracked, anything the government tacitly approves of just happens to run out of time.
Natalie
I thought you were going to say that David Lammy was evil. You would have been correct of course,
Half measures.
Why not simply do away with trials, and imprison people based on coppers’ accusations?
You’d save far more money.
bobby b 11-26-2025 @ 1221 hrs.
Wait for it. This is just the start.
Subotai Bahadur
Another one to be added to the list of things to include in the Great Repeal Act of Dec 2029.
Trial by jury could be taken away at any time. Freedom of speech has been. How much longer before people here realise we need a constitution beyond the power of governments or parliament to change?
Barbarus – yes indeed. I would certainly not defend Scots Law as it is NOW (Scots Law, like Scottish education, has been ruined by “Devolution” – i.e. the establishment of a “Scottish Parliament” which has done terrible harm) – but the old time limits on how long someone could be held before trial and how long a trial could last were good. Although one great flaw even in the OLD system was the ban on private prosecutions – and, as you say, people being de facto let off by the state by the process running out of time.
There clearly has to be a set number of days after a person is charged by which they have to be brought to trial, and a limit on how long a trial can last. Otherwise both lawyers and officials will create endless delays. Justice delayed is justice denied.
Also the obscenity of “copping a plea” (“plea bargaining”) should be ended – in both old Scots law and German law (German law before modern perversions) pleading guilty did NOT get a person a reduced punishment – and nor should it, nor should there be “deals” on the lines of “plead guilty to this lesser charge – and we will let you off this more severe charge”.
No, no, no.
If someone has committed a crime that is the crime they should be prosecuted for – not some lesser crime they did NOT commit, and people should be punished in proportion to the crime – not given an inducement to plead guilty.
“But the delays, the backlog…..” – then your system is an evil farce, stop calling it a Justice system, or a system of Law if it needs all these abuses (and they are abuses) in order to function.
Design a system that will prosecute people for crimes they committed (not other crimes they did not commit), and where there is no more than 40 days between being charged (you should not charge someone unless you have evidence to bring them to trial) and the start of a trial, and that no trial (including breaks) may last more than 40 days, and where people do NOT get lesser punishments for pleading guilty.
And, yes, that is compatible with jury trials. Totally compatible.
For example, Scots Law (although it was far from perfect in many respects) was CLOSE to the above as recently as 1997. Although, yes, Scots law has been ruined in the period after 1997.
And only punish CRIMES – a crime is a violation of the person or property of others, by force or fraud. And punishment should be in proportion to the severity of the violation.
The idea that a “crime” is anything the state does not like (Legal Positivism) is a despicable idea of Thomas Hobbes (and others) and must be rejected.
As for Civil Law – torts rather than crimes.
Governor Sarah Palin was destroyed (and many other people have been destroyed) by endless baseless (baseless) civil actions (being endlessly sued for no good reason) – people were financed by rich leftists in order to sue this lady – for it is not only in Criminal Law that “the process is the punishment”, as the person has their time and their money eaten up by endless legal battles – this is why Governor Palin resigned – and Alaska has not had a good Governor since then (it now has a State wide building code, leftist controlled schools, and-so-on).
People should not be destroyed by wrongful criminal OR civil actions against them – they need to be compensated, at the expense of those who accuse them, for being dragged through the courts on baseless matters.
Of course, judges should not allow actions without merit to succeed – but many judges can not no longer be trusted, they strike down true charges, and allow false charges to proceed (depending on the politics of the person before them) – as they have been taught that “Progressive Social Justice” NOT traditional justice, is what matters.
I should have typed “criminal charges or civil actions” – “Progressive” judges allow false criminal cases to proceed, whilst ending true ones, and they allow false civil actions to proceed, whilst ending true ones.
Being “Progressive”, supporting “Social Justice”, is not compatible with the principles of justice (traditional justice – to each their own) in either the Criminal or the Civil law.
And the establishment is committed to “Progressive” “Social Justice” – which means that both the criminal and the civil “justice” system is going to fall apart.
The robustness of the legal system does not depend on jury trials (although they may be preferable). It depends on the judges being honourable and impartial. Perhaps many still are… but if we could fix the biased judges then the loss of jury trials would not raise so many hackles.
The cynic in me is asking which came first; the judicial chaos or the decision to scrap jury trial?
David Lammy. The banality of evil, personified.
Will Britain adopt the system in the Judge Dredd comics and movies, with the police also being the judge and jury, and executioner? Justice delayed is justice denied, etc.
Anyone follow this guy?
https://youtu.be/hg73_7n_1XQ?si=h2sbAdpw0KcMtz9J
Just wait…they’ll do what the collectivist-run cities in the US are doing. A judge just reversed a fraud conviction for….well, for no legal reason at all, but she was convinced that there was still a teeny-tiny chance that they might have been not guilty. The members of the jury whose decision was reversed all uniformly said that there was NO reasonable doubt whatsoever, and it only took a Minneapolis-based jury (possibly the most collectivist/statist/authoritarian population outside of San Francisco) 4 hours to unanimously vote to convict.
This is what leftist judges do rather than upholding the rule of law.
Over here trial by jury is guaranteed in the Constitution. Isn’t it in the Magna Carta? My knowledge of English history largely comes from 1066 and all that,
but as I recall it specifies that all barons must be tried by a special jury of other barons, who would understand.
@george m weinberg
Over here trial by jury is guaranteed in the Constitution. Isn’t it in the Magna Carta? My knowledge of English history largely comes from 1066 and all that,
but as I recall it specifies that all barons must be tried by a special jury of other barons, who would understand.
Britain doesn’t have a written constitution, just one based on tradition and accepted practices. Practically speaking what that means is that any law can be changed by majority vote in parliament. Which means Lammy and his labour party could eliminate trial by jury and replace it with trial by combat if they wished to do so.
(This is a little simplistic, since the ECH has some impact on that, but our membership there is also subject to majoritarian parliamentary approval. There is no step in the process necessary to reintroduce Trial By Combat anywhere that would require a super majority as would be required to make something that was unconstitutional, constitutional in the USA.)
An establishment, of which the Labour government is only a small albeit enthusiastic part, that has set itself against the interests of the native population is hardly going to allow representatives of said population to stymie its programme.
Maybe the odd exception to allow juries made up of, say, Bristolians or their counterparts in acceptably diverse cities might be permissible. Reform constituencies need not apply.
Discovered Joys – we have been here before.
In the Middle Ages (yes that far back) many Western European nations got rid of juries and gave power to learned judges – steeped in the best interpretations of “Roman” (or what was thought to be Roman) law.
It did not turn out well.
This island was right not to go down that road – but now we are.
And the vile doctrine of “Social Justice” (which the modern establishment is steeped in) is worse (far worse) than the misinterpretations of Roman Law of Europe in past centuries.
Indeed “Social Justice” turns-on-their-heads the traditional principles of justice – of to each their own.
My fear is that even juries of ordinary people may be infected with this Anti Justice which is “Social Justice” – indeed some clearly are.
Many judges certainly are – their culture is saturated with “Social Justice” doctrine now.