Justice Secretary David Lammy stressed that juries remain “fundamental” as he is expected to set out plans to curb their use in a bid to tackle the backlog in the courts.
Mr Lammy, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, will lay out reforms to overhaul the system on Tuesday, amid reports jury trials could be limited to the most serious offences such as rape and murder.
The Bar Council has urged him not to replace juries with single judges, warning that doing so could damage public trust.
Mr Lammy signalled he could expand magistrates’ powers for them to take on more serious cases and questioned whether defendants in “either way” cases should be able to choose to have a jury trial, in a media round ahead of his announcement to Parliament.
He told BBC Breakfast: “So, should we be asking our magistrates to deal with more cases? That’s one of the questions that I’m looking at, and I’ll be answering this afternoon.
“And then there’s a group of cases where you can get up to five years.
“Generally speaking, they’re called triable either-way cases, and also where a defendant can opt to have a jury, and I’m looking at that.
“What I mean by that is, if you steal an iPhone this afternoon from Currys, should you be able to opt to have a jury?
“The trial may take two days, and inevitably, that will cause further delay for more serious and egregious crimes like rape or murder.
“So that’s the question that I’ve been looking at and that’s what I’ll be announcing later on today.
“I want to be absolutely clear, juries remain fundamental to our system.”
The Justice Secretary wants to give victims the “swift justice they deserve” amid a record-high backlog of crown court cases totalling more than 78,000, and trials listed as far as 2030.
Ministers have warned the backlog could rise to 100,000 by 2028 if nothing is done, with a growing number of victims giving up on seeking justice because of the lengthy delays.
Mr Lammy will set out the Government’s response to recommendations made by Sir Brian Leveson in July.
Those include diverting more offences to magistrates’ courts or to a new intermediate court where a judge would hear cases with two lay magistrates.
Sir Brian also called for jury trials to be reserved for the most serious “indictable-only” cases such as murder, rape and manslaughter, and only lesser “either way” offences when a judge deems it appropriate.
And he said judge-only trials could be used in serious and complex fraud cases, or other complex cases determined by a judge.
Mr Lammy suggested in an interview with the Times that he would back Sir Brian’s proposals to limit jury trials to indictable-only offences, arguing that many defendants were “playing the system” by delaying guilty pleas in either-way cases to the last minute.
Proposals to curb jury trials have faced opposition from MPs and legal professionals, including from the Criminal Bar Association and the Bar Council.
Bar Council chairwoman Barbara Mills said on Tuesday: “We have continuously opposed proposals to curtail jury trials because there is no evidence that their removal would reduce the backlog, nor has it been set out how an alternative system would be resourced.
“Replacing juries with a judge alone is not the answer – according to the Institute for Government, few European countries allow lengthy sentences to be passed down by a single judge.
“And as the Lord Chancellor’s own report in 2017 confirmed, juries enjoy public trust in part because they deliver equitable findings – regardless of ethnicity.
“We urge the government to reconsider pursuing radical changes under the mistaken belief that radical equals effective.”
Riel Karmy-Jones, chairwoman of the Criminal Bar Association, said: “The Government talks about its commitment to protect its citizens from harm, violence and sexual offences, but is eviscerating that protection by eroding the public’s right to trial by jury.
“It is not juries that cause delays. Rather, it is all the consequences of the years of underfunding that look set to continue: the artificial cap on sitting days, the crumbling courts, the inadequate technology, the failure to deliver prisoners to court on time, the lack of interpreters, and issues with funding of expert witnesses.”
There has also been a backlash to reports that Mr Lammy has considered going beyond Sir Brian’s recommendations and having jury-less trials for most crimes currently heard at Crown Courts.
The Law Society of England and Wales called it an “extreme measure” and said it has not seen any “real evidence” that it will work to reduce the backlog.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick has accused Mr Lammy of abandoning his principles after previously defending juries.
