Restrictions on jury trials will put real justice at risk | Trial by jury

A possible by-product of the plans to make drastic adjustments to jury trials to assist take care of the backlog within the legal courts would be the impact on these campaigning for transformative social justice (Jury-free trials proposed to save lots of legal justice system from collapse, 9 July).We are able to consider three cumulative results. First, trial by jury represents the one likelihood for activists who’re prosecuted to place their ethical case to 12 of their friends, to hunt civic exculpation from the attain of oppressive legal legal guidelines. Historical past is replete with examples of acquittals by juries performing the position of conscience of the nation: in January 2022, three Extinction Riot activists who stopped a rush-hour prepare for slightly over an hour in central London had been acquitted.A jury can be uniquely positioned to know the experiences of placing employees dealing with police brutality (as in the course of the 1984-85 miners’ strike), or these defending their communities towards racist violence (resembling the ten Asian males acquitted in 2016 after confronting far-right extremists in Rotherham), and its absence in such instances would open the door to numerous wrongful convictions. Lastly, eradicating jury trials reduces the “communicative area” during which activists can interact with folks and share their considerations on, say, the local weather disaster. Within the race to streamline the procedures of justice, we danger larger prices to acquiring actual justice.Dr Joanna Gilmore York Regulation SchoolProf David Mead UEA Regulation Faculty It was once stated that British justice was the most effective on this planet. If ever that was the case, the Leveson assessment of the legal courts exhibits that that is now not the case. After I was a crown courtroom choose (2011-19), colleagues and barristers within the legal courts needed to put up with strictures on their skill to do their job. Cuts to the right funding of instances, to the upkeep of buildings (or their selling-off) and the limiting of “sitting days” have contributed step by step to the legal courts’ lamentable state.Sir Brian Leveson was introduced with a fait accompli. The courtroom system is damaged and prisons are overflowing. No surprise he has needed to make suggestions that aren’t made on precept however purely as a matter of expediency. They’re very radical. Two issues have to occur to forestall a fantastic injustice in the long run. First, the measures proposed, lots of which require laws, ought to come to an finish when the backlog has been cleared. We may then debate whether or not any of them must be made everlasting.Second, the judiciary have to be given a correct voice. With the redefining of the position of lord chancellor within the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, there was a succession of politicians whose major responsibility has been to help the federal government in its fiscal insurance policies. We now stay with the results. The 2005 act must be amended to make the lord chancellor a lawyer and to make their major responsibility the welfare of the judicial system.Owen Davies KCLondon I’m a sitting justice of the peace. Magistrates are the specialists in juryless trials already. Greater than 80,000 trials had been held in magistrates courts in 2024. As magistrates are unpaid volunteers with out formal authorized coaching, appointed from throughout the communities they serve, it may be argued that they bridge the hole between the paid judiciary and the residents who at the moment sit on juries in crown courtroom. They’re due to this fact ideally positioned to supplant juries within the conditions urged by the Leveson report.Title and tackle provided Have an opinion on something you’ve learn within the Guardian right this moment? Please electronic mail us your letter and will probably be thought of for publication in our letters part.