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Lammy<\/strong> says he is going to follow Leveson\u2019s recommendations.<\/p>\n Cases where a sentence is likely to be three years or less will be heard by a judge, he says.<\/p>\n And he says he will remove the right defendants have in some cases to choose what sort of trial they can. He says other judicial systems do not let defendants choose a jury trial, as people can do in England and Wales.<\/p>\n He says Leveson thinks this will lead to cases being processed 20% more quickly.<\/p>\n He says that he will give magistrates longer sentencing powers. He says they will be able to sentence people for up to 18 months.<\/p>\n He says he may extend that to two years, if necessary.<\/p>\n And, for trials that are likely to be long and complicated, judges will hear them without juries.<\/p>\n But juries will continue to be \u201cthe cornerstone of the system for the most serious offences\u201d, he says. Cases likely to attract a sentence of more than three months will go before a jury, including all indictable-only offences.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.53 EST<\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Key events<\/p>\n <\/span>Show key events only<\/p>\n Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Saqib Bhatti<\/strong> (Con) says: \u201cThe idea that you have to scrap jury trials to save jury trials is simply farcical.\u201d<\/p>\n Lammy<\/strong> says the law changes all the time. He says it was only relatively recently what marital rape was outlawed. The system has to modernise, he says.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Here is the Ministry of Justice<\/strong>\u2019s news release on the Lammy announcement.<\/p>\n Here is the MoJ\u2019s summary.<\/p>\n -New \u2018Swift Courts\u2019 will see cases with a likely sentence of three years or less heard by a judge alone – estimated to take 20% less time than a jury trial.<\/p>\n -Handing courts the power to decide where cases are heard no longer allowing criminals to game the system and torment their victims.<\/p>\n -Guaranteed jury trials for the most serious and almost all indictable offences \u2013 including rape, murder, aggravated burglary, blackmail, people trafficking, grievous bodily harm and the most serious drug offences.<\/p>\n -Judge-only trials for particularly technical and lengthy fraud and financial offences freeing up jurors who have to give up months of their lives to hear particularly burdensome cases;<\/p>\n -Giving magistrates the power to hand down sentences of up to 18 months so more cases can be heard by magistrates, freeing up crown court time for the most serious offences. This could go up to two years if needed.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Ashley Fox<\/strong> (Con) asks Lammy to publish the modelling by his department on what impact these plans will have.<\/p>\n Lammy<\/strong> says an impact assessment will be published alongside the legislation.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Lammy<\/strong> says there are offenders who \u201cplay the system\u201d. If the government continues to allow that, victims will suffer, he says.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Neil Shastri-Hurst<\/strong> (Con) asks Lammy to accept that the government is prioritising welfare spending over the courts.<\/p>\n Lammy<\/strong> says the last Tory government did nothing on this. He says these proposals come from a review carried out by an eminent judge.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Richard Burgon<\/strong> (Lab) says the prospect of someone being jailed for three years without a jury hearing the case \u201csends a chill through my heart\u201d. He suggest this is the sort of thing that would happen in Putin\u2019s Russia.<\/p>\n Lammy<\/strong> says justice is not being served now. And he says he would not view the courts in this country as being anything like Russia.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Jeremy Wright<\/strong>, a former Tory attorney general, asks if Lammy views these changes as a temporary, emergency measure, or if he expects them to be permanent.<\/p>\n Lammy<\/strong> says he expects these changes to be permanent.<\/p>\n He suggests changes in the nature of evidence considered in sexual offence cases, like smartphone evidence, means that backlogs are likely to be an ongoing problem.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Diane Abbott (<\/strong>Lab) says there will be miscarriages of justice if the right to a jury trial is restricted. She says she wants to quote from a lawyer who said:<\/p>\n The right to trial by jury is an important factor in the delicate balance between the power of the state and the freedom of the individual to restrict it. The further it is restricted, the greater the imbalance.<\/p>\n Abbott says that was written by Keir Starmer in 1992.<\/p>\n She also says Lammy must be aware of what sorts of defendants are most likely to suffer as a result.<\/p>\n Lammy<\/strong> says most crimes committed by women are dealt with by magistrates.<\/p>\n (He seems to be missing the point of Abbott\u2019s final comment, which sounded more like a point about jury trials being helpful to black and minority ethnic defendants.)<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Jess Brown-Fuller<\/strong>, the Lib Dem justice spokesperson, says she welcomes the extra investment in courts today. But fixing the court maintenance backlog will cost \u00a31.3bn. She says the government should address this.<\/p>\n In response, Lammy<\/strong> says he does not think it is right that someone charged with something like the theft of a bike can opt for a jury trial. That can hold up a rape trial, he says.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Lammy<\/strong> is responding to Jenrick.<\/p>\n He says Jenrick did not mention victims once in his response to the statement.<\/p>\n And he says Jenrick is misrepresenting the system. He says 90% of criminal cases are already heard by magistrates, not juries.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Robert Jenrick<\/strong> is responding to Lammy.<\/p>\n He calls him the \u201cLammy dodger\u201d, accusing him of refusing to come to the Commons to tell MPs about prison release errors. (See 10.37am.)<\/p>\n He says that Lammy and Keir Starmer are both on record as highlighting the importance of the jury system.<\/p>\n Referring to Lammy\u2019s comments about Magna Carta (see 8.59am), Jenrick dismisses the idea that medieval barons would have approved his plans.<\/p>\n He claims that, if Lammy were willing to fund more court sitting days, the goverment could address the courts backlog without reducing access to jury trials.<\/p>\n And he claims the plans announced today will be \u201c<\/strong>the beginning of the end\u201d for jury trials if they are allowed to go ahead.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Lammy<\/strong> says he is going to follow Leveson\u2019s recommendations.<\/p>\n Cases where a sentence is likely to be three years or less will be heard by a judge, he says.<\/p>\n And he says he will remove the right defendants have in some cases to choose what sort of trial they can. He says other judicial systems do not let defendants choose a jury trial, as people can do in England and Wales.<\/p>\n He says Leveson thinks this will lead to cases being processed 20% more quickly.<\/p>\n He says that he will give magistrates longer sentencing powers. He says they will be able to sentence people for up to 18 months.<\/p>\n He says he may extend that to two years, if necessary.<\/p>\n And, for trials that are likely to be long and complicated, judges will hear them without juries.<\/p>\n But juries will continue to be \u201cthe cornerstone of the system for the most serious offences\u201d, he says. Cases likely to attract a sentence of more than three months will go before a jury, including all indictable-only offences.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.53 EST<\/p>\n Lammy<\/strong> is talking about the backlog in the courts system.<\/p>\n He refers to a victim abused by her partner who had to wait six years for a trial.<\/p>\n He says this problem is systematic.<\/p>\n He says Britain is proud of Magna Carta. But Magna Carta says justice must not be delayed, he says.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lammy says jury trials will be restricted to cases where offenders likely to get sentence of more than three years Lammy says he is going to follow Leveson\u2019s recommendations. Cases where a sentence is likely to be three years or less will be heard by a judge, he says. And he says he will remove<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3767,1846,8550,132,124,20100,6293,4022,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-35782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-cases","9":"tag-jury","10":"tag-lammy","11":"tag-live","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-scrapped","14":"tag-sentences","15":"tag-trials","16":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Robert Jenrick claims Lammy’s plans will be ‘beginning of end’ for jury trials if they go ahead<\/h2>\n
Lammy says jury trials will be restricted to cases where offenders likely to get sentence of more than three years<\/h2>\n