The government must rethink its jury trial proposal and “listen” to the legal profession say more than 3,200 lawyers including a former head of the CPS, retired judges, senior barristers, solicitors and academics ahead of a parliamentary debate on new legislation to restrict jury trials.
More than 300 KCs and 22 retired judges are among the 3,236 legal professionals who have signed a letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer urging the government against “draining valuable time and resources” by “attempting to force through an unpopular, untested and poorly evidenced change to our jury system”.
Among the signatories alongside Bar Council Chair and Vice Chair, Criminal Bar Association Chair and Vice Chair and all Circuit leaders are legal leaders, including the former Director of Public Prosecutions Sir David Calvert-Smith, JUSTICE Chief Exec Fiona Rutherford, APPEAL Co Director Emma Torr and 4 former Chairs of the Bar as well as two former Chairs of the Criminal Bar Association.
Current and former politicians who have endorsed the letter include Lord Jonathan Marks of Henley-on-Thames KC, Lord Charles Banner KC, Anna Soubry and former General Counsel for Wales Mick Antoniw MS.
Several well-known on-screen faces have also signed the letter including ‘Judge Rinder’ (Rob Rinder MBE), ‘chaser’ Shaun Wallace and both barrister contestants from this year’s Traitors series, Harriet Tyce and Hugo Lodge.
The signatories – which include those working across all areas of law – tell the Prime Minister: “Criminal law professionals continue to stretch themselves to ensure that the voices of complainants, victims and defendants are heard in court. We ask that the government now listens to our voices, as solicitors, barristers and recently retired judges who have evidenced measures that reduce the backlog of cases without requiring curtailing jury trials…
“We urge the government to focus on the changes we know will make a difference now – many of which are set out in detail in Part 2 of the Leveson review.”
The letter comes ahead of the Courts and Tribunals Bill second reading debate in parliament today (Tuesday). The Bill includes clauses which would remove the right to jury trial for cases which carry a likely sentence of up to three years.
The proposed change – described in the letter as an “erosion of a deeply entrenched constitutional principle for negligible gain” – would see cases heard instead by a judge alone.
This goes further than the Crown Court Bench Division (CCBD) proposal put forward by Sir Brian Leveson in his independent review of criminal courts for a judge and two magistrates to hear these cases.
The government claims this measure will begin to help reduce the 80,000 high backlog in the Crown Court by 2028. However, research by the Institute for Government has shown that the proposal for judge-only trials would save less than 2% of court time, if they are 20% faster, which is itself was described by Sir Brian as “highly uncertain”.
The signatories also point out that both the Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy and Minister for Courts and Legal Services Sarah Sackman have stated that the reduction of jury trials would be pursued irrespective of there being a backlog of cases.
The letter, signed by current and former Bar Council Chairs, leaders of the Criminal Bar Association, Family Law Bar Association and all 6 Circuits, voices “strong” support for Sir Brian’s call to future-proof the system with “sustained and strategic investment in services, people, infrastructure and technology.”
Bar Council Chair Kirsty Brimelow KC said: “This letter and its more than 3,000 signatories demonstrate the unequivocal principled and practical opposition to the restriction of jury trials from not only the Bar, but the legal profession as a whole.
“There is no doubt that the criminal justice is in crisis caused by decades of underfunding – not juries. The mantra of modernisation in relation to juries is a Trojan horse to hack at a deep-rooted constitutional principle for negligible gain. There is very little evidence to support even basic rationality of the government’s decision to rush through this legislation which unnecessarily removes jury trials from thousands of people.
“It’s not too late for the government to listen to us as experts and as a profession and stop before bulldozing our jury system. We are ready to support a turn to the efficiencies that will increase productivity and will actually make a difference to the backlog and delays.”