Freedom of speech in the UK

Great Debates
21

In principle, they worry me too, Steve. But I also worry I’m not understanding the rationale too clearly – I wish the issue was better laid out for public scrutiny and debate.

I think what holds me back a little from jumping to the conclusion that (restrictions on a right to jury trial be more limited) is wrong, is the background of almost everyone concerned. Most notably Blair and Derry Irvine (for whom Blair and his wife worked in Chambers at Kings Bench Walk prior to his political career). Irvine’s Chambers has always specialised, amongst other things, in Constitutional Law and (to a lesser extent) Civil Liberties. He and his pupils, Blair included, do come from a strong tradition.

Also, you don’t really spend that long at the Bar without being imbued with a sense of the importance of justice and, in any event, Cherie, as her father did with the 75p increase for pensioners, wouldn’t hold back if it sounded like justice wouldn’t be served by the proposed changes.

I do believe there is an issue with people facing (for example) shoplifting charges, denying fairly plain guilt (the phrase ‘red-handed’ comes to mind) and claiming the right to trial by jury rather than letting the Mags deal with it. This is rather a long way from proposing the right to jury trial be taken away from those facing prosecution under the OSA.

Quite how to resolve this drain on resources (including on the jury pool), remains unclear. Is it a pointless drain, what safeguards are proposed…I’m not sure.

22

I’ve heard (somewhere, don’t remember source, sorry) statistics for conviction rates in magistrates’ courts, as opposed to jury trials. The magistrates run 40% convictions, as opposed to 21% in trials by jury.

Why the difference? Do we have an excess of bleeding hearts on juries, unwilling to convict? Or is it easier for those wily defending barristers to pull the wool over a jury’s eyes? Well, perhaps… but, a friend of mine works for NACRO (the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, a charity whose aims include the rehabilitation of criminals), and I’ve heard him put the contrary view with some force; that magistrates’ courts, particularly those with lay benches, are unwisely trusting of police evidence, and unfairly quick to convict.

Now, I’m not a knee-jerk critic of the police; I would like to be able to trust them, and the rest of our criminal justice system… but they do make mistakes, and these have led to some very high-profile miscarriages of justice. And I’m inclined to think that, for every high-profile miscarriage, there must be any number of lesser ones that don’t get reported…

Undoubtedly, the right to trial by jury can be (and is) abused, by criminals seeking to spin out the process and possibly increase the expense to the point where the CPS cuts its losses and lets them off. But any system can be abused. And the magistrates’ courts can be abused by lazy, incompetent, or corrupt law enforcers hankering after quick convictions - which abuse, in my opinion, is worse. (After all, miscarriages of justice are a benefit to criminals - public confidence in the law is shaken, and people become less ready to cooperate with the police - and, of course, for every innocent person convicted, a guilty one goes free.)

So, I worry about restrictions to the right to trial by jury. Perhaps my concerns are baseless. I agree, London_Calling, that there is a tradition of justice at the Bar; that lawyers are not all cynical ambulance-chasers, that they will stand up for what is right. On the other hand, the Labour Party had a tradition of socialism before Tony Blair took over, and look what’s happened to that…