David Lammy’s tyrannical assault on trial by jury

An internal government briefing, leaked to the BBC, has revealed that UK justice secretary David Lammy plans to end jury trials for all criminal cases, except ‘rape, murder, manslaughter and public interest’. Building on Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations earlier in the year, the Ministry of Justice plans to create a new tier of criminal court – the Crown Court Bench Division – which would allow cases to be decided by one judge or two magistrates, rather than a jury.

Leveson’s plans were bad enough. Lammy’s ‘reforms’ are even worse. His missive calls for all cases that carry the possibility of a five-year sentence or less to be refused a jury, rather than the three-year threshold suggested by Leveson. The government’s justification for abolishing one of England’s most ancient and proud democratic traditions is a supposed court backlog of 78,000 cases, which has led to waits of up to five years for people charged with a serious crime to have their matters heard.

This argument, however, is highly misleading. As Luke Gittos pointed out on spiked in May, the number of appeals it would cause among those suddenly stripped of a fair trial would arguably increase delays in an already sclerotic system.

Lammy’s argument about court resources also misses a far bigger, more important point. Namely, that his plans would increase the mistrust that much of the public already harbours towards the judiciary. Indeed, far from being apolitical and impartial administrators of justice, too many judges now appear to be openly at loggerheads with the public – particularly when it comes to Brexit and the deportation of foreign criminals. Once public faith in an institution is eroded, it can be very difficult to regain.

Don’t just take it from me that removing jury trials is a bad idea. In April 2020, our wise lord chancellor David Lammy, then merely the MP for Tottenham, tweeted: ‘The suspension of jury trials because of Covid-19 is causing emotional turmoil for complainants, witnesses and all involved.’ He argued that ‘justice delayed must not become justice denied’. A few months later, in June, he tweeted again: ‘Jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea.’ In 2021, Lammy was tweeting again: ‘It would be a catastrophe for victims and justice if we have to close courts or suspend jury trials.’

What has changed in four years for the Labour Party to have u-turned on its commitment to justice by jury? Back during the pandemic, Lammy and others suggested that the backlog be tackled by opening up pop-up courts in the style of the makeshift ‘Nightingale’ hospitals used for Covid patients. Where has all this thinking outside the box gone, now that the Labour Party is actually in power? Could it be that Labour never really believed its pronouncements on ‘justice being denied’ and the importance of democratic involvement in the justice system?

In 1215, the signatories of Magna Carta demanded that ‘no free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land’. From the Ancient Greeks to English kings and the Levellers, there has been an understanding, for thousands of years, of the need for state power to be kept in check by public involvement.

There is wisdom in the crowd. Allowing one singular judge or even two or three magistrates to decide the fate of the accused removes the protection of public opinion. It allows for class prejudice, political bias and even egotism to cloud what should be judgments that reflect public will. After all, the law of the land is supposed to reflect the societal norms that we all subscribe to. Labour’s assault on the justice system is really an assault on us.

Ella Whelan is the author of The Case For Women’s Freedom, the latest in the Academy of Ideas’ radical pamphleteering series, Letters on Liberty.