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The backlog of nearly 80,000 trials clogging up the court system could be cleared within a decade if parliament agrees to slash the number of jury trials, David Lammy, the lord chancellor, has claimed.
In an interview with the Guardian, the deputy prime minister, who is facing a backbench rebellion over the proposals, has urged Labour MPs and the public to back a version of Canada’s judge-only trials in thousands of criminal cases in England and Wales.
Dozens of Labour MPs have expressed concerns about the proposals, which they say could make it harder for defendants from working-class and minority ethnic backgrounds to challenge a prosecution.
One rebel Labour MP, the former shadow attorney general Karl Turner, has said he could stand down and trigger a byelection unless the government scraps plans to restrict jury trials.
Speaking from Toronto, where he witnessed criminal cases in which the defendants faced a possible sentence of up to three years after their cases were heard by a single judge, Lammy said: “It has been happening in Canada for decades. It is very normal. In this jurisdiction, often defendants are preferring to be in front of a single judge rather than a jury.”
Lammy announced last month that defendants who were likely to receive a sentence of three years or less would no longer get a jury trial under new proposals. Defendants would no longer be able to choose a jury trial and the ability to appeal to a crown court against a magistrates court verdict would also be limited.
Magistrates’ powers would be extended from dealing with maximum sentences of one year to at least 18 months and a judge-only “swift” court would be established to hear cases without a jury.
Ministers have argued the move is necessary to halve the number of jury trials from 15,000 a year and to tackle the backlog of court cases that built up over the Covid pandemic.
Ontario’s lowest level court – the rough equivalent of the magistrate court - is led by a single judge and handles most lower-level offences. The province’s superior court of justice – equivalent to a crown court – handles murder, manslaughter and offences against the state. Defendants have a right to a jury trial only if they are on trial for a crime that could receive a maximum penalty of five years or more.
Lammy said Canadian-style reforms should be considered in England and Wales because the backlog of cases was due to continue to rise.
“The arrest rate [for police officers] has gone up by 10%. There are more cases coming into the criminal justice system because of an expansion in technology, forensic science, and particularly CCTV evidence. The increasing complexity of cases means the trials are also going on for longer … And the backlog, if we did nothing about it, will go beyond 100,000,” he said.
Asked when he expected the backlog to be cleared if his reforms were passed, Lammy said: “I’d like to see the backlog coming down by 2029 and the next general election.”
Asked if he would expect the backlog to be cleared by the mid 2030s, Lammy answered “yes”.
MPs and lawyers have urged the government to introduce a “sunset clause” on the reforms so that the changes could be reversed once the backlog has been reduced.
Lammy declined on two occasions to rule out inserting such a clause. “I’m keen to listen and speak to parliamentarians. I’ve been doing that, and so has [the justice minister] Sarah Sackman,” Lammy said. “But I do think reform is necessary if we want to save the criminal justice system and make it fit for purpose.”
Responding to Lammy’s comments, Richard Atkinson, the immediate past president of the Law Society, said focusing on introducing judge-led courts ignores other practical solutions to the backlog such as repairing existing but unused courts, investing in legal aid and earlier mediation.
“In Canada the situation is very different. They have time limits on how long a case can wait to come to trial, and have decriminalised a number of offences as well as significantly increasing financial resources. To jump to a single-judge court is to go too far from our established criminal justice system,” he said.
Last week, Turner, the MP for Kingston upon Hull East, broke the party whip for the first time since his election in 2010 to vote against the proposals. He was the only Labour MP to oppose the government and back a Conservative motion.
Turner said Lammy’s claims that the proposals would cut the backlog were “dishonest”.
“David Lammy’s insistence that the proposals to curtail jury trials will cut the backlog and enhance justice is dishonest because the bill is not retrospective, it’s going to take two years to get it on to the statute books and it is going to take years to recruit and train judges,” said Turner.
“He has been persuaded to save some money for the Treasury, and has swallowed an old idea which has been peddled for years by civil servants. But any savings will be outweighed by the costs of finding judges and setting up these new courts.”
