The founder of Keir Starmer’s barristers’ chambers has condemned the planned restriction of jury trials in England and Wales as “a betrayal of the values for which Labour purports to stand”.
Geoffrey Robertson KC, founding head of Doughty Street Chambers, where the attorney general, Richard Hermer KC, and the justice secretary, David Lammy, also had their professional homes, has written a more than 9,000-word polemic to coincide with the committee stage of the courts and tribunals bill.
In the document, published on the Bar Council’s website on Monday night, Robertson questions the principle and efficacy of seeking to reduce the court backlog by using the bill to slash the number of jury trials by about half, calling the proposals a “cure worse than the disease”.
He says: “Attacking juries must be regarded a betrayal of the values for which Labour purports to stand.
“How have they come to betray a principle that has been so important over the centuries for those who have dissented or stood for progress?
“Given its record of support for progressive causes, for free speech and peaceful political protests, the bill does seem a betrayal of Labour traditions and values. MPs who vote in favour will be on the wrong side of their party’s own history.”
He says trial by jury is a much-admired part of English heritage, trusted by the public, and has a constitutional importance in allowing lay people to stand up independently against the state and extend mercy to defendants who deserve it.
Tracing the history, Robertson says Clive Ponting, who was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act for passing documents to a Labour MP about the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands war, would not have been entitled to a jury trial under the proposals. Jurors cleared Ponting despite the judge directing them to convict and ignore his defence that he was acting in the public interest.
Robertson writes that Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, if ever prosecuted in relation to the Epstein files, could lose their right to jury trial under the changes because their hypothetical trials would be “lengthy” and probably “complex”.
He says: “The determination, by 12 citizens, of evidence tested by prosecution and defence, is a surer guide to the right result, reflecting common sense and common values, than the personal view of a judge or a bench of magistrates.
“A jury trial (always under the supervision of a professional judge) is much superior to a trial before lay magistrates, a group of amateurs with the time and money to devote to punishing those from a different class.”
He says judges “are not representative of the public, come from an upper middle class and may lack understanding of contemporary social and moral attitudes”.
The human rights lawyer, who, joked that “Doughty Street has become Labour’s equivalent of Eton for the Tory cabinet”, claims that the proposals would place additional burdens on court time. Extra hearings would be needed to determine whether cases qualified for jury trial, including an analysis of the likely sentence, and judges would have to produce detailed written reasonings, he argues.
He describes claims that the criminal justice system could collapse if jury trials are not limited as exaggerated. He says the backlog resulted from spending cuts and could be tackled with greater efficiency by addressing other factors such as delays in getting defendants to court. The proposals would do nothing to curtail the investigation process involving police and prosecutors, including the decision to charge, which involves “some of the worst delays”, he adds.
The Bar Council chair, Kirsty Brimelow KC, applauded Robertson for highlighting the history and value of jury trials. “I hope many MPs will read this profound and professional analysis and stop the jury-wrecking parts of the bill in its tracks,” she said.
A Ministry of Justice source said more money and efficiency measures were insufficient, adding: “Years of inaction by the Tories have created a system that is no longer fit for purpose, where justice delayed has become justice denied.
“Only a combination of investment, modernisation and reform can turn the tide on the backlog before the end of the parliament.
“The alternative to this package is the Tory status quo: continued drift, collapsed trials, and victims walking away from the system entirely.”
