Critics say scrapping of plans, which aimed to increase judge-alone trials to deliver swifter justice, leaves court system and victims vulnerable
Ministers have scrapped plans that would have slashed the number of jury trials in England and Wales and replaced them with a judge sitting alone.
The proposals had sparked a fierce backlash from lawyers, who have welcomed the U-turn. But the victims’ commissioner expressed concern about the abandonment of measures drawn up by the then justice secretary, David Lammy, under Keir Starmer’s government, to tackle the record backlog in the courts.
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Lammy’s proposals came after a government-commissioned review by the former judge, Sir Brian Leveson, who recommended taking away the right to jury trial from thousands of defendants to prevent the criminal justice system from collapsing.
But critics, including Geoffrey Robertson, founding head of Doughty Street Chambers, where Starmer, Lammy and the attorney general, Richard Hermer KC, spent part of their professional careers, accused Labour of abandoning a centuries-old right and claiming that it would not reduce the backlog substantively. Some Labour MPs also opposed the move.
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