DAVID LAMMY: Jury trial change will likely be life-changing for victims – now we have the center to do it
Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy says witnessing cases without juries in Canada ‘gave me hope’, with victims paying the price for huge backlogs in the UK
David Lammy has defended the controversial proposals(Image: PA)
Last week in Canada, I saw a justice system that was fair, professional, and crucially, fast.
It gave me hope for victims of crime here at home. At the Ontario Court of Justice in Toronto, I saw rigorous trials taking place without juries.
Instead, expert judges alone heard cases and handed down sentences of up to two years for less serious offences, and longer for more serious offences. There was no time lost selecting juries. I heard from judges who said these trials were much faster than those heard by juries – sometimes cutting trial lengths in half.
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For victims, that difference is life-changing. Canada’s legal system is built on the same foundations as ours. A common-law democracy. A Parliament like ours.
But while they have modernised their courts, the Tories allowed ours to stall. The crisis in our justice system is now at breaking point. In 2019, around 38,000 cases were waiting to be heard in England and Wales’ Crown Courts.
Today, that backlog has ballooned to almost 80,000. Even with investment, it could rise to 116,000 by 2029. That is no way to run a country.
It is ordinary working people who pay the price. Survivors of rape, violence and burglary left unable to move on with their lives. Victims forced to wait years while their attackers roam the streets awaiting trial.
Let me be absolutely clear. Juries will always remain at the heart of our justice system for the most serious crimes.
Rape, murder and grievous bodily harm will always be decided by a jury of your peers. That will not change. But we must evolve. Our new ‘Swift Court’, sitting within the Crown Court, will allow judges to hear cases where the expected sentence is three years or less.
This, as part of a wider reform package, will help free up the system, cut delays, and get justice moving again. Some say the answer is simply more money.
That is why this government is delivering £150 million more a year to modernise courts and funding record-breaking sitting days. Others point to empty courtrooms. But the bottleneck is not buildings.
For cases to run, we need available judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers and court staff. More cannot be trained overnight. The world has changed. Smartphones and advances in forensics mean mountains of more evidence.
Jury trials, which make up just 3% of criminal trials, now take about twice as long as they did 25 years ago. So yes, we are investing. Yes, we are committed to making our courts more efficient. But we are also reforming a justice system that has been left to decay.
The choice is stark. Do nothing, as the last government did, and watch victims suffer as the system collapses. Or reform, modernise, and restore justice.
Canada shows there is a better way. This government has the guts to take it.
