\n<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer is facing the threat of a backbench rebellion over plans to reduce the number of jury trials in England and Wales as dozens of Labour MPs signed a letter describing the move as \u201cmadness\u201d.<\/p>\n
The justice secretary, David Lammy, announced plans earlier this month that will take thousands of trials away from the jury system to be heard instead by judges and magistrates.<\/p>\n
The government and the retired judge Sir Brian Leveson, who was commissioned to come up with proposals to change the justice system, argue that a record backlog in the courts is failing victims, witnesses and defendants.<\/p>\n
A group of 39 Labour MPs have now signed a letter urging the prime minister to reverse the plans, which they describe as \u201can ineffective way of dealing with the crippling backlog in cases in our criminal justice system\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe drastic restriction of the right to trial by jury is not a silver bullet. To limit a fundamental right for what will make a marginal difference to the backlog, if any, is madness and will cause more problems than it solves,\u201d the letter added, warning that the public \u201cwill not stand for the erosion of a fundamental right\u201d.<\/p>\n
The MPs suggested a series of alternatives to tackling the backlog, including increasing the number of sitting days for courts.<\/p>\n
Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East, who is among those coordinating the letter, said on Thursday that the plans were unworkable and unpopular, citing the majority of people who said they were against the idea during a consultation in Scotland.<\/p>\n
He said Lammy \u201cought to know\u201d the causes of the backlog in cases being heard, adding that it was the private security company Serco not delivering defendants to court on time.<\/p>\n
On top of the 39 who had signed the letter, Turner said a growing number of MPs were coming forward to express concerns. \u201cThis is not just the usual suspects. There are people on that letter who have never voted against the party during the entire time they have been in it,\u201d he told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have never voted against the Labour whip ever in the 15 years I have been in. I will do on this because this will not work. It is just simply unworkable. It won\u2019t work and I am afraid the government are going to have to realise that and change their tune.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turner said he was a friend of the prime minister and was on \u201ctexting terms\u201d with him, but warned that his government was in danger of \u201cmaking the mistakes of the past\u201d and MPs were being \u201cmarched up hills\u201d that they would have to come back down from.<\/p>\n
Starmer has previously answered the concerns from his critics in the party about the plans by telling them jury trials already make up only a small proportion of trials in the criminal courts system.<\/p>\n
In the Commons last week, Starmer told Turner \u2013 who confronted him on the issue at PMQs \u2013 that \u201cjuries will remain a cornerstone of our justice system for the most serious cases\u201d.<\/p>\n
There are almost 80,000 cases waiting to be completed in the crown courts and Lammy has warned that the figure will rise to more than 100,000 without radical changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Keir Starmer is facing the threat of a backbench rebellion over plans to reduce the number of jury trials in England and Wales as dozens of Labour MPs signed a letter describing the move as \u201cmadness\u201d. The justice secretary, David Lammy, announced plans earlier this month that will take thousands of trials away from the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[20905,20904,134,730,414,480,1347],"class_list":{"0":"post-38010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-judiciary","9":"tag-juryscrapping","10":"tag-labour","11":"tag-madness","12":"tag-mps","13":"tag-plans","14":"tag-starmer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38010","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=38010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}