Trial by jury is a centuries‑old safeguard, dating to before the Norman Conquest and guaranteed by the Magna Carta, designed to ensure that an individual can be judged guilty only by their peers and not by the machinery of the state.
So, it is completely wrong that the Government is planning to scrap trial by jury for some offences.
The Bar Council – representing the very professionals who keep our justice system functioning – has been unequivocal. There is no evidence whatsoever that restricting jury trials will reduce the backlog.
The Government has produced no modelling, no data, no analysis to justify this constitutional gamble.
To claim that reducing jury trials further will magically clear a backlog of tens of thousands of cases is not just implausible – it defies logic. It makes no sense whatsoever. It is a distraction.
This is not a pragmatic response to a temporary crisis. It is a structural shift in the balance of power between the state and the citizen.
Justice delayed is justice denied
And during last week’s debate, the Government let the mask slip: it had planned to curtail jury trials regardless of the backlog. It has no mandate to do this. Where was it mentioned in Labour’s manifesto in 2024? It wasn’t.
Justice delayed is justice denied – the Secretary of State said that in his statement announcing these changes – but injustice is no justice at all.
Victims deserve faster trials. Defendants deserve fair trials. And the public deserves a justice system that works – not one where constitutional rights are chipped away because Ministers find them inconvenient.
If the Government truly wants to reduce the backlog, it should invest in court capacity, address legal aid, reopen shuttered courtrooms, and ensure that criminal barristers are not driven out of the profession.
Those are the solutions. Not dismantling a centuries-old safeguard.
For the sake of justice, for the sake of public confidence, and for the sake of the constitutional principles that have protected British liberty for generations, I will continue to urge the Government to rethink its plans and keep jury trials at the heart of the British criminal justice system.
This is a monthly guest column provided by
Blake Stephenson, Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire.
It is published unedited and does not
reflect the views of the Bedford Independent.
