Courts and Tribunals Bill
JUSTICE has briefed MPs on the Government's plans to restrict the right to jury trial, ahead of the first debate on the Courts and Tribunals Bill in the House of Commons.
The Bill is being introduced in response to the outstanding caseload in the Crown Court, which continues to grow and currently stands at almost 80,000 cases.
It follows Sir Brian Levesonʼs Independent Review of the Criminal Courts. He recommended getting rid of jury trials for cases with a likely sentence of three years or less and replacing them with trial by a judge and two magistrates. The Review also recommended introducing judge-only trials for certain serious and complex cases, for example, complex fraud.
However, the Bill goes further than the Sir Brian's recommendations and would have the following effect:
- Removal of the right of defendants to elect for Crown Court trial in triable by either-way cases.
- Replacing the automatic right to appeal to the Crown Court from the magistratesʼ court in criminal proceedings with a permission stage - and replacing the full re-hearing in the Crown Court with a hearing on issues only for which leave to appeal has been granted.
- Introducing powers to extend the magistratesʼ court sentencing powers from the current 12 months, to either 18 or 24 months by way of secondary legislation.
- Restricting jury trials by introducing judge-only trials for: (1) triable either-way cases likely to receive a custodial sentence of three years or less by judge alone. (2) technical and lengthy fraud and financial cases.
- The Bill would also introduce other measures including amending the statutory thresholds governing the admissibility of evidence, amendments to the Children Act 1989 in respect to the presumption of parental involvement, reforms to the leadership of Tribunals, and changes in respect to magistratesʼ expenses.
JUSTICE is concerned by several of the proposed reforms to the criminal courts and strongly opposes the proposal to restrict jury trials.