Using judges to fix the broken courts undermines justice

Reducing jury led trials won't fix years of mismanagement

Sir Brian Leveson’s recent report recommends that thousands of criminal cases which would normally be tried by a jury should instead be handled by judges alone. Commissioned by the Lord Chancellor to propose solutions to the mounting court backlog, the report spans 388 pages. But in truth, these proposals aren’t all that new. They echo Sir Robin Auld’s recommendations from over two decades ago. The only difference? The system has deteriorated even further since.

The scale of the problem is staggering. The backlog in Crown Courts is pushing 80,000 cases. Some trials aren’t scheduled until 2029. Victims are left in agonising limbo, defendants languish in prison awaiting their day in court, and memories of witnesses fade with every delay. Around 17,000 individuals are currently on remand, making up 20 per cent of the prison population. The longer justice is delayed, the less likely it is to be delivered at all.

But here’s the thing: justice is justice. We can’t offer people a watered-down version because successive governments have failed in their most basic duty to uphold law and order. The crisis looming over our justice system has been evident for years. The fact that our politicians are more interested in handing over sovereign territory or keeping the obese and anxious at home instead of maintaining our justice system tells us everything we need to know about their priorities.

Among Leveson’s recommendations is a broader remit for magistrates, who would now handle offences like voyeurism, indecent image possession, and stalking order breaches - far beyond the motoring offences and petty assaults they usually deal with. He also proposes a new hybrid court: a Crown Court Bench Division made up of one judge and two magistrates. This would replace jury trials for cases with potential prison sentences of three years or less, including violent disorder, drug offences, and sexual assault.

That’s where alarm bells start ringing.

Let’s be honest: ordinary members of the public are far more likely to have firsthand experience of things like drug trafficking, violent crime, or sexual assault than the judges and magistrates appointed to rule on such cases. And that lived experience matters. It allows jurors to pick up on nuance, context and patterns that someone from a more insulated background might overlook. How many magistrates do you reckon live on council estates where many of these problems are rife? Exactly.

Ironically, many judges already shape their rulings based on what they think a jury would decide. So why not just have an actual jury? And why, in a country that can somehow find billions for bloated welfare spending and dubious asylum claims, is properly funding our justice system treated like an impossible ask?

This creeping shift toward judge-led trials feels like a step closer to juristocracy - government by judges. Judges may be highly trained, but they are still human, with biases and blind spots. If people were rightly outraged by Judge Melbourne Inman’s decision to hand Lucy Connolly 31 months in prison for a tweet, how comfortable should we feel about giving individual judges even more discretionary power?

We must ask: Who holds these judges accountable? Other judges. Many of whom hail from similar backgrounds and social circles. There’s no meaningful check on the concentration of this power.

Right now, over 90 per cent of criminal cases are already handled by magistrates. Is it really necessary to erode that last 10 per cent? Trial by your peers should mean something if we still claim to live in a functioning society. Juries bring balance and perspective. They represent the public’s voice. Removing them from even more cases not only undermines confidence in justice but cuts off the community from its rightful role.

Leveson doesn’t stop there. He suggests increasing the reduction in prison sentences for guilty pleas from 33 to 40 per cent. That risks public trust in sentencing fairness. He also calls for a rise in the number of Crown Court sitting days - from 110,000 to 130,000 annually - and recommends increasing the threshold for criminal damage to be treated as a summary offence from £5,000 to £10,000. Each of these measures may ease pressure on the courts, but they come with trade-offs that demand serious scrutiny.

This isn’t about resisting modernisation for the sake of tradition. The idea of streamlining our courts isn’t inherently wrong. But gutting one of the few remaining checks on judicial power is not the answer.

Since the Magna Carta in 1215, the right to be judged by one’s equals has been a cornerstone of English Common Law. Are we really so bankrupt of imagination and willpower that we’d cast that aside to patch over the failings of our political class?

This isn’t justice reform. It’s justice retreat.