Like most British people, I was brought up to respect the law and its traditions, including trial by jury.
As many will know from consuming countless TV shows, films and novels, in the more serious court cases in Britain, a dozen men and women selected at random listen to the evidence before the court and decide who is guilty and who is innocent. If the accused is found guilty, the judge decides the penalty.
It’s a tradition that has been a cornerstone of the UK’s democracy ever since trial by jury was first recorded in England in the 13th century. It came into existence after the Vatican authorities in 1215 moved away from the cruelty of “trial by ordeal”, a medieval practice where guilt or innocence was determined by a judgment after an “ordeal” such as holding a hot iron.
The courts in England and Wales are somewhat different from those in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but the jury system features in all parts of the UK and was exported to former British colonies, including the US in the mid-17th century.
Court traditions include somewhat antiquated trappings such as the ways in which judges and lawyers are expected to dress. They typically wear black gowns, starched white neckwear and uncomfortable-looking wigs. Some years ago, I asked a judge whether wearing wigs in court wasn’t a rather daft tradition. He strongly disagreed, saying there had been occasions when he felt that an unruly accused person in the dock only kept calm because of the authority that a wig and gown bestowed on the judge and therefore on the justice system.
I thought then – and still think now – that the judge was absolutely right. There is something about the formalities of the British court system that commands respect. I’ve attended a number of criminal cases as a journalist and can vouch for the idea that wigs and gowns do bring a sense of authority, order and even calm to proceedings that at times involve violent or disturbed people in the dock.
And so like many British people, I was shocked by the suggestion from Justice Secretary David Lammy that jury trials may soon be abandoned in some of the less serious cases. The reason for this undoubtedly controversial proposal is clear. The England and Wales court system – indeed the wider justice system at all levels – is on the verge of chaos.
In recent weeks, there has been a series of embarrassing cases involving prisoners being released when they still had time left to serve. The prisons are hugely overcrowded, morale among prison officers is said to be low, and the system seems to be in the Victorian age of pen and paper rather than laptops and emails. Moreover, building new prisons not only takes time, but it is also a simple fact of life that while every honest citizen wants convicted criminals to be put behind bars, few honest citizens are enthusiastic about a new prison being built in their neighbourhood.
Beyond the planning problems, there is also the court log-jam problem. The backlog of serious criminal cases has increased significantly since the Covid-19 lockdown. It’s estimated that almost 80,000 serious court cases involving juries are still waiting to be tried.
A few months ago, I was invited to a private lunch that included a number of judges and lawyers. There was total agreement that the criminal justice system is on the verge of meltdown at more or less every level. The judges – men and women I respect greatly for their common sense as well as their legal knowledge – all seemed very alarmed at what may happen without urgent government action.
Hence Mr Lammy’s suggestion – still to be confirmed by a formal announcement – that a judge sitting alone will hear some criminal cases currently heard by juries. Jury trials, according to his proposal, will be absolutely necessary only in the case of murder, rape, manslaughter, or those cases defined as being “in the public interest” – whatever that may mean.
The opposition has been fierce. The Conservative party’s Robert Jenrick points out that 800 years of history should not be “casually discarded” because, as he puts it, “the spreadsheets” have turned red. Mr Lammy responds that the UK is currently in a situation where “a rape victim [is] being told their case won’t come before a court until 2029” and we should also consider the case of “a mother who lost her child at the hands of a dangerous driver waiting to see justice done”.
This is hugely emotive stuff. It is designed to be. Governments need to make hard choices, and this is going to be one of the hardest.
Mr Lammy could point out that Mr Jenrick and the Conservative party were in power from 2010 until 2024, and according to a UK government website, just “500 places had been added to prison capacity between 2010 and 2024”. More than a decade of neglect from the previous government needs urgent attention now, but I don’t envy Mr Lammy’s dilemma.
There is truth in the old wisdom that “justice delayed is justice denied”. For victims of serious crimes, then, you are a victim twice over if the justice system takes years to punish the criminal responsible for harming you.
