{"id":591155,"date":"2025-11-24T17:19:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T17:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/591155\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T17:19:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T17:19:13","slug":"its-not-jury-trials-that-have-left-britains-justice-system-in-crisis-trial-by-jury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/591155\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not jury trials that have left Britain\u2019s justice system in crisis | Trial by jury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your report (MoJ to remove right to trial by jury for thousands of cases in controversial overhaul, 20 November<\/a>) confirms that next month the government will respond to the first part of the Leveson review into criminal courts, which includes the potential curtailing of the right to jury trial for certain offences through the introduction of a new intermediary court \u2013 the crown court bench division (CCBD).<\/p>\n

The Bar Council welcomes many of the recommendations in Brian Leveson\u2019s report<\/a>, but we regard the introduction of an intermediary court as a time-consuming measure that requires legislative change and hinges on increasing court resources that could be better diverted to the existing estate.<\/p>\n

The government claims that the new court promises to have significantly shrunk the 80,000 backlog by 2029. As this has not been piloted or thoroughly modelled, there is little evidence to\u00a0support this claim.<\/p>\n

The focus should be on fixing the swathe of inefficiencies plaguing the system, which could be resolved and make a real difference now. Courtrooms across the country are sitting empty, and prisoners\u00a0do not arrive on time, so\u00a0cases begin late or not at all. And\u00a0when these obstacles are overcome the entire system from start to finish is riddled with problems due to a lack of basic resources. These problems will persist unless a long\u2011term plan is\u00a0implemented.<\/p>\n

The government should first test whether efficiency reforms to the crown court estate, prisoner escort and custody services, and court technology would make a difference before making any major\u00a0constitutional change.<\/p>\n

The criminal justice system is not\u00a0in this crisis because of jury trials. At the very least, the CCBD should be modelled and piloted before doing away with a longstanding tradition, which may\u00a0result in a further lack of trust\u00a0and confidence in our criminal\u00a0justice system.
Barbara Mills<\/strong>
Chair, the Bar Council<\/p>\n

Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/strong>email<\/strong><\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/strong>letters<\/strong><\/a> section.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your report (MoJ to remove right to trial by jury for thousands of cases in controversial overhaul, 20…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-591155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115605822970131339","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}