Lammy to address ‘court emergency’ but expected to safeguard jury system – UK politics live

Justice secretary appears to have pulled back from plans to scrap juries for all but the most serious cases

Good morning. David Lammy, the deputy PM and justice secretary, will today unveil plans to slash the use of jury trials in England and Wales. With the backlog of cases due to be heard in courts already at 78,000, and heading for 100,000, Lammy will argue that drastic action is needed to handle a “courts emergency”.

The full details will not be unveiled until Lammy stands up in the Commons. The Ministry of Justice is taking the principle that ‘parliament must be told first’ a bit more seriously than some other government departments on this occassion, and the overnight press briefing was a bit short of detail. But Lammy has also given an interview to the Times, and written an article for the Daily Telegraph, and we know roughly where the decision has landed.

I will not be standing up in parliament … and announcing that we are scrapping jury trials, which remains a fundamental part of our system, and is one of the big contributions that flow out of Magna Carta — indeed, to much of the common law and the global community. This is about saving the jury system.

Some argue that reform is an attack on the traditions that define our legal system. They reach for Runnymede and Magna Carta, insisting that nothing must disturb the arrangements of centuries past. These are grand claims but they overlook what Magna Carta actually says. Clause 39 promises the judgment of our peers and the law of the land and, crucially, clause 40 warns that to no one will we delay or deny right or justice.

When a victim waits years for a trial, when the courts are so backed up that criminals fear no punishment, when an innocent person sits under a cloud of accusation – justice is denied. Magna Carta was a protest against state failure. If its authors saw the delays in our courts today, they would not urge us to cling rigidly to tradition. They would demand action.

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Source: www.theguardian.com

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