On Saturday 18 October 2025 two schools, Aylesbury Grammar School and Cardinal Newman Catholic School, came head to head in a specially convened Debating Matters competition for the Battle of Ideas festival. The topic for debate was: ‘Trial by jury should be removed in certain cases’ – using a newly updated topic guide for the competition. The debate was chaired by Tom Collyer, an alumnus of Debating Matters, who is now a regular DM chair having previously worked at Ideas Matter organising debates and updating topic guides.
For this debate, students were given the comprehensive topic guide, to assist with their independent research, in order to debate whether we should remove trial by jury in some cases. This discussion has emerged in society recently following the UK government report conducted by retired judge, Sir Brian Leveson, in September 2024. Students were challenged and pushed by both the judges and the public audience to defend their side of the debate and to find their best argument. The judges for were Sonya Douglas, Dr Rakib Ehsan and Ann Furedi.
One of the key questions that these students tried to grapple with is how much should we trust the public to make decisions in relation to law. Does this improve the public’s belief in our legal system and does this improve democracy? Is there an issue to moving away from the public to rely more on experts? Juries serve as our lasting custodians of public morality, to protect against the tyranny of the rule of the elite, argued the against team. As Rousseau asserted, ‘The wisdom of the common person offers this more clearly than the powerful ever could.’
A further argument which was debated throughout was that of the education and comprehension of juries. With increasingly complicated cases, the for team asked, can juries comprehend and understand issues relating to complex accounting and law? In addition, is it really fair for those undergoing the trial to be judged by those who can’t fully understand the evidence laid upon them? However, those opposing the motion argued that this leads to an overreliance on expert and detailed knowledge, rather than a trust in public morality and a belief in right or wrong. Is the answer not to make the law more accessible to the public?
‘I don’t think you can rush justice…if you rush the law, you risk losing integrity. Justice isn’t a race it’s a responsibility to us all,’ argued Rubhaya Aziz from Cardinal Newman (pictured above), who was against the motion. She furthered suggested that we should have patience with the law, as it is better that it is done effectively, with the eyes of the public upon it, rather than rushing it for efficiency and lower costs.
Many other heated questions came to the fore throughout this debate, such as should we expect ordinary people to give up a lot of time for jury duty or does this breed resentment and hamper impartiality? Is there a problem with society pushing us away from jury duty and the responsibility we have as a society for the legal system? Should we keep jury duty and make it more interesting and valued, rather than giving even more power to judges, lawyers and experts?
The winner of the debate was Cardinal Newman Catholic School, where Noah London and Rubhaya Aziz effectively argued that there is tremendous value in our trial by jury system, as the range of background, experiences and opinion are crucial to preserve the relationship between people and the law. Whilst they did say there are issues with the current legal system, this was seen as a problem with the wider system and backlog with the courts, rather than the jury system itself which they sought to defend. However, they certainly faced stiff opposition from Aylesbury Grammar School with Finley Batchelor and Ray Rehman putting up a strong defence against the use of trial by jury in certain cases.
Debating Matters prioritises careful research, considered forming of opinions and attentive listening, and the skills it develops are exactly what students need in order to thrive in today’s world. Every school should be a Debating Matters school!
Peter Shears CNCS
We hope that the participating students enjoyed this challenging debate and the wider challenge of ideas across the Battle of Ideas festival. They certainly fulfilled the ‘substance over style’ motto of Debating Matters that we strive for – to win with ideas not with rhetoric.
