Labours Plan, Gerichtsverfahren zu kürzen, steht im Widerspruch zu früheren Starmer-Aufrufen, sie auszuweiten
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov/26/labour-plan-slash-jury-trials-keir-starmer-past-calls-expand
Von F0urLeafCl0ver
Labours Plan, Gerichtsverfahren zu kürzen, steht im Widerspruch zu früheren Starmer-Aufrufen, sie auszuweiten
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov/26/labour-plan-slash-jury-trials-keir-starmer-past-calls-expand
Von F0urLeafCl0ver
12 Kommentare
Labours plan is to slash the backlog of cases – no point giving everyone a jury trial if they die of old age before they get to it!
The fact that the papers are wilfully misrepresenting this just to attack is cheap.
I suppose I should gently point out that, for the time being at least, it is not actually government policy to abolish jury trials.
>In a magazine article, the prime minister wrote that “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”. He called for jury trials to be extended to thousands of cases before magistrates courts “despite the inevitable increase in costs”.
In **nineteen-ninety-fucking-two**
God forbid a man doesn’t keep the exact same stance over the course of a 33 year period
So I know nothing about this…why is a trial by jury a particularly good way of doing things? Why would 12 random (possibly angry) men be an especially good way of determining guilt or innocence?
It’s almost as if people can change their opinions based upon changes of circumstances.
There are arguments for long trials to be dealt with by a Bench. I don’t have confidence in the average jurors attention span for a trial over a fortnight. I think where a defendant gives evidence a jury is pretty vital though. In any event this proposal doesn’t have „legs“ as it is not in the manifesto. Perhaps sort out court delays by giving a more generous discount for guilty pleas rather than an early release for all.
Just completed my first ever jury service, they need to get rid of this system yesterday
I think there’s decent logic to reform on this stuff, but it should be done with the intention of making justice better not just to save time.
With juries you obviously have the issue that a lot of people on them can be either really dumb or not that arsed about being there, so its a system where results can either be gamed by crafty lawyers in some cases or you get wrongly convicted by a dumb lazy jury who just want to go home which probably happens more than we’d like to admit.
Ideally you’d want more than one judge in any kind of bench trial since otherwise you end up at the whims of one judge who are very much just as capable of having their own biases. But then that would require these reforms to be done properly not just as a time and cost saving measure.
Just like his Secretary of State for Justice, David Lammy, who tweeted in 2020:
‚Jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea. The Government need to pull their finger out and acquire empty public buildings across the country to make sure these can happen in a way that is safe.‘
Not like this government to say one thing to get into power, and the exact opposite once in power?
[https://x.com/DavidLammy/status/1274301160216805377?s=19](https://x.com/DavidLammy/status/1274301160216805377?s=19)
I like it when someone changes their mind means they are open to new ideas isn’t that what you want from a leader?
Jury’s are important because they are the public’s last line of defense against unjust laws. A jury can choose to find someone not guilty even against all the evidence and no one is allowed to know what was said in that room for the conclusion to be made.
This is why judges stopped environmental protestors from explaining the reasons for their actions. Jury’s were finding them not guilty because they felt their prosecution was unjust.
This government and the last have both shown increasingly authoritarian attitudes towards protest, And despite all the problems with juries, we should be extremely wary of any government that wants to reduce or remove them.
For me this is one of those things that should be in a manifesto.