huffingtonpost - 11 days ago

David Lammy the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, is reforming the justice system.David Lammy is set to unveil major changes to the justice system in the Commons today, following earlier reports that all jury trials could be scrapped.Juries have been a key part of English law dating back to the Magna Carta of 1215, which stated no free person shall be arrested or imprisoned “except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the laws of the land”.However, the deputy prime minister will announce that in some less-serious cases, a judge will decide on someone’s guilt or innocence rather than a jury.While Lammy will unpack the full details later in the Commons on Tuesday, here’s what we know so far.What’s wrong with our justice system?Labour has spent much of its first 18 months in office attacking the mess the Tories left within the UK’s justice system – first tearing into the crisis around the overflowing prisons, and now criticising the backlog of court cases. There are almost 80,000 outstanding Crown Court cases right now, projected to reach 100,000 without urgent action.Lammy has warned there could be a “courts emergency” driven by the soaring backlogs, falling public confidence and serious cases slowing down.Labour claims the Tories oversaw a 206% increase in Crown Court cases outstanding for a year or more between 2016 to 2024, rising from 4,759 to 14,549.Waiting times for rape, murder and GBH trials increased by at least 12 weeks, while murder trial delays increased by 350%, with 36 trials delayed in 2023.Rape cases took more than four months longer to reach trial in 2014 and GBH cases took nearly a full year longer.According to Lammy, a rape case reported in December 2025 would not go to trial until 2028.Is David Lammy scrapping all jury trials?No – Lammy is expected to announce he will drop jury trials for “either way” cases, which can usually be heard in either magistrates’ courts or Crown courts, like those linked to assault, burglary and drug dealing.These reforms mean the accused will appear before a single judge, not a judge with two magistrates.Lammy told The Times he feared many people were “playing the system” and delaying guilty pleas until the last moment.He told Times Radio: “We will not be abolishing juries. “Juries are the cornerstone of our system and must and will continue.”Lammy said explained: “If you steal an iPhone from Curry’s this afternoon, should you be able to elect to have a trial by jury? That’s really the nub of the problem.“Because if you do elect to have a trial by jury, your case comes on, you spent two days, and obviously all the costs of that trial, by definition, the rape case will be further delayed.“Should that case be dealt with by magistrates, because at the moment it would not be, or should that case be dealt with by a judge or by a jury. So it’s deciding those cases.”He also hit back at criticism that he was disrupting rights which had been enshrined in the Magna Carta.The senior minister said the 13th century document states justice must not be denied or delayed – and points out that jury trials were scrapped for defamation cases in 2013.Lammy wants to modernise the court process, increase Crown Court sitting days and invest more than £550 million in victims’ support.Lammy told The Times this is about “saving” juries rather than scrapping them.The justice secretary did reportedly consider dropping plans for trial by jury in nearly all cases aside from rape, murder and manslaughter last month.But, after intense criticism, he rowed back on those plans.What will this do to the backlog?Lammy told Times Radio he is aiming to reduce the backlog, but admitted: “It won’t be eliminated by the next election. That’s impossible. We just have 84 Crown courts across our country and 500 courtrooms.”He refused to give a target number too, saying: “I’m not going to set a number today. “But what I would say is that when I was shadow justice secretary back in 2020, the number was 42 [thousand]. Today it’s 78 [thousand]. And it could rise to 100,000. I want to see it coming down.”Is it just jury trials which could be impacted?Lammy said former senior judge Sir Brian Leveson, who conducted a review for the government, has called for Labour to “throw everything at this.”He continued: “We’ve asked him also to look at efficiencies, not just in the court system, across the criminal justice system. That’s with our prosecutors. That’s with the police. “And when he comes forward with that report in the spring, it’s at that stage that I can really turn my mind to the kind of numbers that we can get this down by.”Has this plan been well received?No, there’s already been plenty of backlash towards the proposal.Richard Edwards from the University of Exeter Law School, said it was “misleading” of the Ministry of Justice to claim “there is no right to a jury trial”.“Any proposal to remove jury trial from the great majority of serious criminal cases is not an administrative adjustment: it is a repudiation of the constitutional settlement of 1689,” he said.“It is precisely because it is democratic that it stands as a bulwark against state overreach, prosecutorial excess, and unconscious bias.“Remove it, and you remove not only the community from the administration of justice but also a vital democratic check on state power.“That is not effi it is constitutional amputation.”He claimed that the reforms overlook how judges often exhibit measurable prosecution-leaning in summings-up and interventions, which is “why verdicts in serious criminal cases should not be left to a single state official.”“The case for restricting jury trial collapses under scrutiny. These reforms would diminish justice, weaken public trust, and erode a constitutional safeguard that has served this country for centuries,” Edwards added.Labour peer and barrister, Baroness Kennedy, said this would be the end of the jury trial, saying: “It’s going to be almost inevitable that it will end being judge alone trials that will be advocated by those who don’t like jury trial at all.”Former director of prosecutions, Dame Alison Saunders, told Times Radio last week: “To sweep away a fundamental principle of the system because of practicalities, and that’s what we’re talking about, we’re not talking about principles, we’re talking about practicalities, I think is quite worrying.”Related...Lammy Defends Himself Amid Fallout Over Accidental Prisoner Release4 Reasons The Accidental Prisoner Release Is Particularly Humiliating For LabourPressure Mounts On David Lammy Over Prisoner Release Row

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