The right to jury trial is under imminent threat in England and Wales. As with all areas of life, Covid-19 has had a profound effect on the criminal justice system. Trials were suspended at the end of March. A limited number of socially distanced trials has resumed, but the backlog of cases continues to grow. On 23 June, Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland QC told the Justice Select Committee that that he is considering introducing legislation this month to allow trial by a panel of a judge and two lay magistrates for ‘either-way’ offences (‘middle-ranking’ offences that can be tried in either the magistrates’ court or Crown Court). Such trials would be quicker and cheaper than jury trials and enable the backlog to be reduced. The costs of losing juries may be harder to reckon on a spreadsheet but should concern us all – as citizens, potential suspects or victims of crime.
Many countries (including most of the rest of Europe) have fair trials without juries but their criminal justice systems are set up differently, and the training and recruitment of lawyers and judges is distinct. There are good arguments for both types of systems, but a pick and mix approach is potentially dangerous. The Lord Chancellor’s approach does not go as far as some of the proposals that have been floated by former judges for reviving the judge-only ‘Diplock’ system that operated in Northern Ireland during the ‘Troubles.’ Three people deliberating may be better than one and this is the arrangement already used in hearing appeals against conviction from the magistrates’ courts, but little is known about how this part of the system works.
Only 2% of criminal cases are dealt with by juries (the rest are determined by the magistrates’ courts or plead guilty) but they serve an important practical and symbolic role in society. The make-up of juries has changed since Magna Carta gave every Freeman the right to the "legal judgement of his peers", but the current position is that anyone aged between 18 and 75 who is on the electoral register and fulfils a residence requirement is eligible for jury service. (Even a judge struggled to get excused from one case until pointing out that he could not serve on a jury and judge the same case). As the Guide to Jury Summons states, "[j]ury service is one of the most important civic duties that anyone can be asked to perform."
