Jury trial reforms set to be announced

The government is expected to announce controversial plans to limit the right to a jury trial in England and Wales in an attempt to alleviate unprecedented backlogs and delays in the justice system. Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister David Lammy is scheduled to lay out the plans in Parliament later on Tuesday, though he has maintained that juries would remain a "fundamental component of the criminal justice system."

It is currently unclear whether the scheme—which would remove jury trials for the majority of serious cases excluding murder, manslaughter, and rape—has received final Cabinet approval.

The Proposed Reforms

Reports last week indicated that Lammy's final decision, contained in a leaked government paper, was based on recommendations from a senior retired judge.

Current Backlogs: There are currently 78,000 cases pending in Crown Courts.¹ Officials predict this caseload will rise to over 100,000 if no action is taken. This backlog means some defendants charged today may not have a hearing until late 2029 or early 2030.
New Trial Types: The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) reportedly intends to establish new types of jury-less trials, where the facts will be determined by a judge alone.
Scope: The jury trial would cease for the majority of cases heard before Crown Courts, including robbery, most drug offences, violent crime, and fraud. Only cases where the defendant was likely to be convicted of murder, manslaughter, or rape would proceed before a jury.
Magistrates' Powers: The sentencing powers of volunteer magistrates—who handle the majority of criminal cases in the lowest courts—will be doubled to two years.
Geographic Scope: The plan does not refer to Scotland or Northern Ireland.

The recommendations are said to go further than those made earlier this year by Sir Brian Leveson, a retired Court of Appeal judge.

Lammy's Position and Defence

Ahead of the announcement, Lammy has not disclosed the full details of the reform but confirmed an additional $£550$ million over three years for specialist victim assistance programmes, and a $£34$ million package aimed at attracting more barristers into criminal careers.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, he thanked the 350,000 people who serve on juries every year. However, he suggested that using magistrates for less serious offences would be necessary to free up the Crown Court.

"If you rob a phone, a trial could take two days, which could lead to delays for more serious offenses such as rape or murder."

Lammy, who previously stated that removing juries would be a mistake, told the BBC that the "truth had changed" and that the government must introduce reforms to eliminate the backlog: "We've got to invest more, we've gotta modernise, and we'll have to reform. I'm determined to do it for victims all around the world."

Criticism from the Legal Profession

The proposed reforms have been met with strong opposition from within the legal profession:

Chris Kinch KC, a former resident judge, argued that the reforms will do nothing to expedite trials and that juries are a vital right that maintains a link between the Crown Courts and the communities they serve. He stated, "You'd need a very good reason to replace them."
Abigail Ashford, a solicitor advocate, warned that judge-only trials jeopardise confidence in justice, potentially increasing inequalities and eroding community trust among already marginalised groups.² She argued that excluding the community from judging credibility "undermines trust in a way that cannot be compensated for by concentrating decisions in the hands of a single judge."
Riel Karmy-Jones KC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, stressed that the extraordinary delays were caused by underfunding, not by juries.³ She dismissed the proposal: "Imposing an untested, untested layer of complexity and cost in the form of any new division of the Crown Court on our desperately underfunded system with its aging infrastructure is counterintuitive."

Many criminal barristers blame the backlogs on more than a decade of underfunding by the previous Conservative government.⁴

Political Fallout

Lammy is also facing political pressure. The Shadow Justice Secretary, Robert Jenrick, has accused him of abandoning his principles regarding the importance of juries.⁵ Jenrick claimed that the Labour Party had chosen to "spend billions of pounds on health care rather than funding the courts to get the backlog down."