Courts minister Sarah Sackman has confirmed that people who are already waiting for a trial date may lose their right to a jury, should Labour’s court reforms come into force.
Meanwhile, rebellion brews among Labour MPs as increasing numbers join the fight against the reforms. At the same time, there’s talk among lawyers of strike action should the restriction of jury trials go ahead as planned.
Labour’s retroactive application
Revealing a new development in Labour’s plans to restrict jury trials, Sackman stated that:
In terms of the measures themselves, while cases that already have a trial date set for a jury or are already in train, of course those will have to proceed.
But cases that are already in the system where a trial date hasn’t been set, these measures will apply to those because what you want is those measures to kick in straight away so they can start to bring down the backlog.
This would result in defendants who were already awaiting trials in the belief that their case would be heard by a jury of their peers suddenly losing that right.
The news comes just weeks after justice secretary David Lammy assured the public that the new measures wouldn’t be applied retrospectively. Sackman argued that this comment from Lammy wasn’t wrong, but that he’d answered a question “in a different context”.
Rebellion
Whilst Sackman and Lammy are ploughing ahead with their plans, it’s increasingly clear that they’re failing to bring the rest of Labour with them.
Lawyer-turned-Labour MP Karl Turner is leading a rebellion against the jury reform proposals. The Hull MP stated that he’s “ashamed” of Keir Starmer, who was also once a respected lawyer.
In fact, Turner told Sky News that his party must be ready to lose both himself and many of his colleagues should the reforms come to pass.
Detailing the massive support for his resistance, Turner said that “at least 60” other Labour MPs were willing to rebel along with him. He described this level of support as crucial, as it means:
it’s not difficult for five more and 10 more and 15 to come on board because you’ve got the security of the numbers”.
He also added that:
The chief whip can’t start suspending 80 members.
Likewise, Turner said that if Labour tried to threaten him into compliance, he would quit his seat altogether, triggering a by-election and a potential loss for his party.
Likewise, whilst Labour MPs are threatening to rebel, senior lawyers also look set to follow suit. They’re refusing to rule out the possibility of industrial action regarding the restrictions to jury trials. The Criminal Bar Association’s Simon Spence KC said:
I don’t think we as a profession are going to rule anything out. They conducted a survey and found over 85% of those who responded said that they were opposed to the abolition or reduction of jury trials.
U-turn after U-turn
Along with all of the above, PM Starmer’s recent (lack of) political maneuvering has backed him into a corner on the jury trials.
Following Labour’s latest U-turn to scrap the idea of compulsory digital ID cards, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch hammered her Labour counterpart during this week’s PMQs:
Badenoch : The Prime Minister says that no one is going to listen to us—who is going to listen to him? The winter fuel allowance? U-turn. WASPI women? U-turn. The two-child benefit cap? U-turn. Grooming gangs inquiry? U-turn. The family farms tax? U-turn. Digital ID? U-turn. Jury trials?
Hon. Members: U-turn?
Badenoch: We hope so. I think that is going to be the next one. Week after week, the poor people sitting people sitting behind the Prime Minister have to defend the indefensible, only for him to U-turn a few days later.
As such, backing down on restricting jury trials would constitute yet another U-turn in a long line of the same. What’s more, it would be a feather in Badenoch’s cap for predicting the blunder.
Likewise, the victims commissioner for England – Claire Waxman – also warned against rowing back on jury restrictions, stating:
If you row back on this, we will see a backlog of 100,000, of 125,000. That is a public safety issue. Victims will not stay six, seven years in the justice process. The justice system will no longer function, it will collapse, it is already on the brink.
On the other hand, if Labour don’t back down, they could face walkouts and rebellions among 60+ of their own MPs. And, alongside them, strike action from lawyers would only serve to increase the backlog in the courts. So, Starmer, Lammy and Sackman find themselves between a rock and a hard place.
Of course, the solution would have been not to propose stripping the public of one of their most fundamental legal rights in the first place. But you’d have to be some kind of political genius to tell that would have been a deeply unpopular move… right?
Featured image via the Canary
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