Thousands of lawyers urge Keir Starmer to rethink plans to cut jury trials | Trial by jury
Plans to reduce the number of jury trials in England and Wales have been described as “unpopular, untested and insufficient evidence” by thousands of lawyers writing to the prime minister.
The letter from 3,200 lawyers, including 300 senior lawyers, to former director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer comes as his government faces one of the most serious backlashes since coming to power.
Efforts by Justice Secretary David Lammy to change the mind of Labor leader Karl Turner, who opposes the plans, failed after a meeting on Monday night.
Turner, who previously co-ordinated a letter from 38 Labor MPs urging the prime minister to reverse the plans, said he was “absolutely not convinced”.
The Conservatives are expected to vote to block the second reading in parliament on Tuesday. But the true extent of the Labor rebellion may not yet be clear.
More than 65 Labor MPs are thought to be considering voting against the bill, but it is understood many may abstain and instead vote against it at a later stage of the legislative process, such as the report stage.
Courts minister Sarah Sackman could not confirm in interviews on Tuesday morning whether Labor MPs who rebelled against the vote would lose the whip.
“Nothing that is difficult or worth doing is ever easy and I don’t shy away from that debate. And indeed some of those voices will help us examine and develop the bill as it moves through parliament,” he told Times Radio.
Meanwhile, shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy accused the government of launching an “unacceptable attack on an ancient right”.
“Juries provide a safeguard between citizen and state. But Labor wants to undermine this because Keir Starmer and David Lammy are putting the politically expedient ahead of the tough steps of court reform,” he said.
On Monday, Lammy warned opponents of the bill that criminals would go free if it was blocked.
Writing for the Telegraph, the deputy prime minister wrote: “Too many victims all over Britain today are enduring the same ordeal. For them, justice delayed is justice denied. When this happens, criminals roam free on our streets and more victims are created.”
Lammy noted that the size of the court backlog that the bill aims to address is very serious. He said the number of cases awaiting hearing in the crown court had almost doubled, from about 38,000 in 2019 to nearly 80,000.
Lammy appealed to Labor MPs’ sense of social justice as he defended the plans at a Labor meeting in parliament last night, telling them: “When a public service collapses, the rich or well-connected are never the first to fall through the cracks.”
The letter to Starmer came from thousands of legal experts, including former director of public prosecutions Sir David Calvert-Smith, and was drawn up by the Bar Council.
The letter said: “Using our capacity as legal experts with extensive experience of working in the courts of England and Wales at all levels and in all jurisdictions, we urge you to reconsider proposals to abolish jury trials for cases that carry a prison sentence of up to three years.
“We fully support and share the government’s aim to reduce criminal court congestion and delays between the alleged crime and the completion of the case. We have long warned that the criminal justice system is in crisis.
He added that juries “did not cause this crisis” and cited the findings of the independent review of criminal courts (the Leveson review); where Sir Brian Leveson stated that “the most important reason was chronic underfunding at every step”.
