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Can Labour save a failing system by hollowing out its safeguards? David Lammy, the justice secretary, thinks so. Under his proposals, jury trials in England and Wales will be effectively halved. Currently, defendants charged with “either-way” offences have the right to choose whether to be tried by magistrates or a jury. But Mr Lammy wants any case where the likely sentence is less than three years – everything from sexual offences to theft to violence to narco-crime – to be judge-only. This is the most sweeping change to criminal justice in modern British history. Only the gravest crimes – such as murder and rape – will retain lay participation.
Mr Lammy once said juries filter prejudice. He should rethink plans to strip away ancient rights without evidence they will speed up justice. Jury trials account for less than 3% of all criminal cases. They are not what clogs the system. Sir Brian Leveson, whose review Mr Lammy cites as inspiration, did not recommend a blanket scrapping of defendants’ right to opt for a jury. He did not suggest using speculative sentence predictions to determine the mode of trial. He did not propose removing lay participation from “either-way” trials. He did not call for expanding magistrates’ sentencing powers to two years, nor for judge-only trials across whole categories of crime.
Instead, Sir Brian proposed that for most “either-way” offences a judge would sit with two magistrates – a change that would retain the lay element for fairness but speed up trials. That protection is what Mr Lammy wants gone. As the former lord chief justice Lord Thomas told the BBC, removing lay input is “the most controversial and serious aspect of the reforms proposed”. It strips away ordinary citizens’ involvement in deciding guilt – a right that has survived monarchs and wars, but apparently not Mr Lammy’s inability to stand up to the Treasury.
The justice secretary said that the system was at breaking point with a backlog of 78,000 crown court cases, some listed into the next decade. This is not the fault of juries, but was caused by a decade of cuts. Mr Lammy thinks that magistrates can take up the slack – and there’s something in that – but they already face 361,000 pending cases. The delays in justice are down to courts being closed while staff and judges have not been replaced. Digital forensics collapsed under the weight of modern evidence. Legal aid was gutted, driving barristers from the profession. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was starved of resources.
A serious plan to rebuild justice would reopen courts and recruit judges. Legal aid needs to be rebuilt, as does the CPS. There needs to be investment to repair what austerity destroyed. But Mr Lammy’s plans are for fewer juries, more magistrates and longer sentences. Prisons are already bursting at the seams and real-terms day-to-day spending by the Ministry of Justice this year is 14% lower than in 2008.
The rightwing playbook is to first defund the public realm. Once it collapses, politicians declare it inefficient and replace safeguards with “managerial efficiency”. The goal is to shrink the state’s obligations permanently. Removing jury trials for offences under three years opens the door to raising that limit to five. A party founded to expand democratic participation may destroy one of its oldest privileges. In surrendering to such dismal logic, Mr Lammy risks not only weakening the justice system but forfeiting Labour’s own moral inheritance.
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