When the right to trial by jury is radically cut back later this year or early next, let’s not pretend it’s because anyone has come up with a better idea for handling criminal cases.
It’s because the rot has set in so deeply that now we can’t operate. Successive governments have starved the criminal justice system of essential funds, consistently put prosecution and courts low on the priorities list while pretending to be ‘tough on crime’, and then looked the other way as the roof caved in – sometimes literally.
Sir Brian Leveson, a retired judge, was tasked by Labour with delivering a plan to fundamentally change the way justice is done in this country, and yesterday he delivered.
The headline is that thousands of criminal trials each year will no longer go before a jury, but will instead be overseen by a judge and two magistrates. The treasured and historic right to trial by jury will be swept away from defendants in all but the most serious of cases.
Sir Brian was frank that this is not a cause for celebration. It is a treatment for a crisis. The system is edging ever closer to total collapse, and he believes his plan might help to fix things.
The evidence to support his case is overwhelming –prisons are full to bursting, trials are now being listed for as far away as 2029, and victims and witnesses are withdrawing from cases, having totally lost hope of getting justice. And who can blame them?
The government is likely to accept most of his recommendations, but it must face strong pressure to do so only on a temporary basis – until the crisis has passed. It must never be forgotten that these reforms are borne out of absolute necessity, on the back of years of catastrophic failures and neglect.
If the ceiling collapsed at a primary school, enterprising teachers may take their lessons on to the sports field to keep the show on the road. There might be some benefits to al fresco learning, but no one in their right mind would want to make the switch permanent. There would also be a thorough investigation to determine why the roof fell in, who was to blame, and how can we ensure it never happens again.
In justice, this kind of disaster has been ongoing on a vast scale for years. Instead of investigating and then fixing the root causes of the problems, politicians have made things worse by closing courthouses, driving out lawyers by slashing budgets, and inventing new ways to send people to prison without building extra jail cells.
So now we have no choice but to accept the Leveson reforms.
But those pushing back on cutbacks to jury trials shouldn’t be dismissed as either legal bores or hopeless romantics wedded to a bygone era.
Perhaps more than ever before, this country needs faith in its justice system. People need to be sure that the courts are doing a good job, and they need to trust that anyone who finds themselves in the dock will be treated fairly.
Part of this is a matter of perception. Rightly or wrongly, being judged by a jury of peers is still viewed as the gold standard. Standing trial in front of a judge flanked by two magistrates simply isn’t seen as favourably, regardless of how many eminent judges issue statements saying that judges do things fairly.
Support for juries is actually perverse at times, as judges deliver considered reasons for their verdicts whereas jurors deliver guilty or not guilty verdicts and are occasionally prone to having reached mystifying conclusions – whilst being sworn to silence.
Sitting on a jury is the biggest window that the public have into the courts. In a post-truth era, that matters more than ever
But in the post-truth era we live in, there is intrinsic value in a justice system with juries that people believe in. At its heart, justice should be for the people and delivered by the people.
Sitting on a jury is also the biggest window that the public have into the courts. Gone are the days of criminal trials being watched by the masses, as per the Netflix true crime documentaries of the 1800s. Snatching away the ability of hundreds of thousands of people to see justice first-hand and actually deliver it themselves will make the system seem all the more secret, and untrustworthy.
Sir Brian did not recommend that his reforms be temporary. He says that’s because he does not know how long they will take to work. But he accepted that in a fixed justice system where backlogs and delays were once more under control, he “anticipates there would be real pressure to go backwards”.
That is placing faith in politicians – the same class who wrecked the system – to do the right thing in the future.
This is the moment for criminal justice to be put on the same kind of pedestal as the NHS
Instead, if Parliament scales back the right to jury trial, it must do so on the explicit basis that it’s only temporary, unless anyone can prove that the alternative is actually better.
At the same time, this is the moment for criminal justice to be put on the same kind of pedestal as the NHS, to be funded to the hilt and protected from the whims of irresponsible ministers.
There should be real monitoring of how justice is done, to determine if the Leveson reforms are working, inquiries to determine how the courts were so fundamentally broken, and a concerted effort to build up public trust in the system.
All of this feels like a pipe dream when you spend your days watching the anguish of victims whose day in court is years away, while hoping that the ceiling won’t fall on your head as you work. But this is the only way to avoid having a second-class justice system forever.
Tristan Kirk is Courts Correspondent at The London Standard
