Was the government right to scrap plans to limit jury trials?
The Crown Court backlog in England and Wales has reached over 80,000 cases, more than double 2019 levels, leading to years-long delays and many victims withdrawing. In December 2025 Justice Secretary David Lammy announced plans to limit jury trials to offences likely to attract sentences over three years, replacing them with judge-only swift courts for many either-way cases. On 3 October 2026 the government announced it was scrapping the single-judge element after criticism from the Bar Council, MPs and new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, though some restrictions on electing jury trial remain in the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
5 Opinions
A rushed decision by an incompetent Home Secretary without first thinking it out.
The Bar Council felt the one-Judge trials were untested, and wouldn't improve things much. The government doesn't have a mandate to do this either. Unless the Bar Council are happy with a change in that direction things are best left as they are. I believe the US do have one-judge courts, might be worth investigating how well they do.
I voted and I started to put opinion and I realized that I read question wrong (by default all government's decisions are wrong). Can we have a mechanism of changing vote as long as voting takes place? Maybe some would change their initial vote after reading the great opinions by members?
This is one of the most dystopian moves in history. You need only look how a literal anti-white racist was installed to ensure Danny Tommo would be incarcerated!
We got this right 800 years ago. The Star Chamber took it away again from 1487 to 1641. Then Magna Carta was reasserted. One would think the lesson had been learned...