The Guardian view on restricting trial by jury: a shabby evasion of responsibility | Editorial

The criminal cases backlog requires radical action, but the problem has been caused by government cuts, not by an ancient and fundamental liberty

Abolition of trial by jury in England and Wales in all but the most serious cases is not the official policy of Sir Keir Starmer’s government – yet. All the signs, however, are that it soon will be. The leak of a Ministry of Justice (MoJ) briefing this week suggests that the lord chancellor, David Lammy, has signed off a plan restricting jury trial to a narrow band of serious offences – murder, manslaughter, rape and cases passing a public interest test. An announcement could come soon, with legislation in the new year.

If Mr Lammy has his way, a new lower tier of juryless crown courts would hear most cases now heard by juries. Those involving criminal charges carrying a maximum sentence of up to five years would be heard by judges in the planned crown court “bench division”. Juries would no longer hear fraud and financial crime cases either. This would mean a large majority of the more than 30,000 jury trials each year in England and Wales being heard instead by judges alone, at an estimated saving of 20% of trial time.

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