Published August 2025
Please note, this Topic Guide should be the starting point of your research. You are encouraged to conduct your own independent research to supplement your argument.
INTRODUCTION
The right to a fair trial is a fundamental legal principle which ensures that individuals facing legal proceedings, both criminal and civil, are treated justly and impartially. Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law [Ref: Human Rights Act 1998]. This right is enshrined in various international human rights instruments and national laws, including Article 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 in the UK and, as a principle of English law, it dates back to Magna Carta [Ref: UK Parliament].
Since it was first introduced, trial by jury has not only been thought to be the fairest form of justice but it has also acted as a powerful safeguard against tyranny [Ref: Judiciary UK].
However, due to an increasing backlog in the criminal courts system, in December 2024, the British Government commissioned a review to make recommendations on its reform [Ref: gov.uk]. Retired judge, Sir Brian Leveson, was appointed to undertake the review following the revelation that the caseload for the Crown Court had reached a record high of 73,105 cases in September 2024 – almost double pre-pandemic levels [Ref: House of Lords Library]. This finding means that victims, witnesses and defendants are increasingly having to wait years for trials to go ahead [Ref: BBC].
The Crown Court is where all trials by jury take place, and a number of options have been put forward to reduce the backlog in the courts system by removing the trial by jury element of the process. Leveson has suggested having judge-only trials for less serious cases, having more out of court resolutions such as cautions, and the setting up of a new class of trials – “intermediate courts” – where cases ‘too serious for magistrates’ courts but not serious enough for the Crown Court could be heard by a judge, flanked by magistrates.’ [Ref: Ministry of Justice]
These proposals have proven controversial because they threaten a core tenet of the English legal system – the right to trial by a jury of one’s peers. This has been seen as ‘one of society’s fundamental freedoms’ since its enshrining in Magna Carta in 1215 [Ref: Bar Council]. Clause 39 of Magna Carta states that ‘no free man’ should be imprisoned or punished ‘except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land’ which has evolved into the modern concept of trial by jury. Therefore, critics warn, we should be wary of calls to limit this practice because ‘Juries are the final bastion of public morality in our legal system. They allow the public to be the arbiters of how the black letter of the law is applied.’ [Ref: Spiked] In other words, juries act as a safeguard against capricious power and prejudice. British judge and legal philosopher, Lord Devlin, famously described the jury system as ‘the lamp that shows freedom lives.’ [Ref: House of Lords]
However, in practice, today most trials take place in magistrates’ court, without a jury. Fewer than 1% of criminal cases in England and Wales are decided by juries [Ref: The Guardian]. Given these are generally the most serious offences which carry the severest penalties, the risks associated with any mistakes are great. Furthermore, critics argue, once steps have been taken to soften the principle of trial by jury, it will be difficult to reverse. Yet, when the UK is faced with the reality of a system where trials take, on average, 683 days from offence to sentence, is this position so easy to defend? [Ref: National Audit Office].
Moreover, advocates for reform argue that the problems caused by the current system’s backlog are so great that justice is not being served in the here and now. Trial by one’s peers remains an abstract ideal, they say, if the courts’ backlog is so great that trials cannot take place at all. The situation is so dire, according to some, that the system is in danger of total collapse and the chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Anthony Rogers, has argued that ‘radical action’ is needed urgently [Ref: Sky News].
So, where should the balance be struck between principle and practice? Is it necessary to remove the right to trial by jury in certain cases? Will this help deal with the backlog in the court system? Or should we be firmly against the removal of this long-standing democratic principle? Are there other considerations to be made in terms of how we administer justice? Is trial by jury, in the words of Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, ‘potentially a recipe for incompetence and bias’, or was Winston Churchill correct that it is the ‘supreme protection…. for ordinary individuals against the state’?
IN CONTEXT
This section provides a summary of the key issues in the debate, set in the context of recent discussions and the competing positions that have been adopted.
The Leveson review has reignited an old debate about whether the principle of ‘trial by jury’ is the best way to ensure justice in the modern world. During the Covid Pandemic, when the system had to be suspended, many argued that the government should take the opportunity to give the system a long-overdue reform, arguing that jury trials are ‘archaic, and should be abandoned other than in exceptional cases.’ [Ref: Guardian]
But the argument goes back even further and often centres on the idea that members of the jury aren’t intelligent or informed enough to follow basic court proceedings. In 2013, in a high-profile case of ‘perverting the course of justice’, the case collapsed because the jury did not understand concepts such as ‘reasonable doubt’ [Ref: The Express] and in 2007 MPs voted in favour of introducing, the Fraud (Trials Without A Jury) Bill, which would have ended trial by jury in complex fraud trials cases [Ref: www.parliament.co.uk]. Although scuppered by the defeat of the bill in the House of Lords, many argued at the time that cases too often fail owing to their complexity, and ultimately justice is damaged as a result. Then, as now, critics of trial by jury suggest that the complexity of today’s gravest court cases is often beyond the capacity of a jury of laypeople. Often key factors in a case concern ‘technical fact, rather than a balance of observation’; as non-specialists, juries cannot therefore deliver a meaningful verdict [Ref: The Guardian]. Further, because juries do not give reasons for their decisions, it is impossible to evaluate the ‘quality of their reasoning’ [Ref: Gresham College].
Those who favour removing jury trials argue that reducing their number will benefit the administration of justice. One key contention is that current delays damage both the chances of a just outcome, and cause trauma to the people involved. A paper from the National Audit Office reports that ‘Over one quarter of cases wait for a year or more to be heard, prolonging the distress to victims, witnesses and defendants’ [Ref: National Audit Office]. In addition, delays increase the risks of cases collapsing, meaning victims do not see justice served, and potentially, that serious criminals go free: ‘Longer delays mean victims and witnesses may withdraw from proceedings, or their recollection of evidence declines over time.’ [Ref: National Audit Office]
The best judge?
Today’s hyper-connected world makes it harder to ensure juror impartiality, according to some critics of trial by jury. Jurors are not permitted to research or read news about a case online to avoid bias [Ref: Police Conduct UK] – but this is unenforceable. Jurors are often unclear on what they can and cannot legally do, and cases sometimes collapse due to jurors’ inappropriate use of the internet [Ref: BBC]. News spreads faster and further than ever before, making it difficult to find unbiased jurors in high-profile cases, they argue. For example, the ‘most hated man in America’ Martin Shkreli made headlines in 2015 for buying rights to a life-saving AIDS medication and raising the price by 5000%. Charged with fraud in 2018, 247 potential jurors were dismissed from his trial due to existing negative bias; ‘it took the court three full days just to find 12 jurors who did not have a pre-existing opinion of him’ [Ref: BBC].
However, defenders of trial by jury argue that such measures to ensure an impartial jury are worth it, to defend this ancient democratic principle and that there is simply not enough evidence to show it would reduce a backlog in the court system [Ref: Guardian Letters]. Moreover, they argue, attacks against the practice reveal an anti-democratic distrust of the people. One of the great strengths of the jury lies in its independence from government and its distance from vested interest. As judges are in the pay of the state and act on behalf of it, the presence of ‘twelve angry men’ drawn from the people is currently the most democratic way to hold the state to account [Ref: Spiked]. Furthermore, blaming juries’ competence is rarely the problem in complicated trials. In fact, it is the role of judges, advocates and experts to explain and distil the evidence for jurors – something they are clearly failing to do in some instances. Removing trial by jury, moreover, would undermine public faith in the judicial system [Ref: The Standard].
A study by Professor Cheryl Thomas, Are Juries Fair? Found that juries are fair, effective and efficient [Ref: Ministry of Justice], whilst the Lammy Review noted that juries were one of the few ‘success stories’ of the criminal justice system where there was no difference in outcome for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people and white defendants [Ref: The Guardian]. Perceptions of fairness also matter. Magistrates are more representative (56% female; 12% BAME) than judges (32% of court judges are females; 7% BAME compared to around 15% of the general population) but there is less chance of representativeness on a panel of three rather than twelve. Unlike juries, judges and magistrates are likely to be much older than defendants (95% of magistrates are over forty), and from very different social backgrounds. This may affect how defendants, witnesses and victims feel about the fairness of proceedings.
However, some argue that the jury trial is an outdated model designed for the 13th century, not the modern world. Columnist Simon Jenkins argues that jurors too often treat trials as ‘a staged drama enveloped in publicity, an echo of a public hanging’ [Ref: The Guardian], and that this favours excessively harsh judgements and incarceration rates ‘notoriously among the worst in western Europe’ [Ref: The Guardian]. According to Jenkins, trial by jury is the reason the UK has some of the highest incarceration rates in the western world, ‘our system is obsessed with imprisonment above all other forms of punishment,’ he argues.
Reducing the backlog?
As noted, this is not the first time reducing the scope of jury trials has been raised in the UK. In 2000 then-Home Secretary Jack Straw proposed abolishing the right of defendants to choose between magistrate or jury trial ‘for most non-minor offences’ [Ref: Justice], with the stated aim of reducing delays and the potential for abuse. It encountered strong opposition in the House of Lords and was dropped [Ref: The University of Law]. The issue was revived in 2020 as a means to address growing backlogs due to the disruption of Covid-19 [Ref: Corker Binning].
Retired barrister Nigel Rumfitt KC, criticising the proposed new trial format, asserts that the proposed changes will ‘imperil confidence in the justice system’ [Ref: Guardian] by excluding the British people from participating in the law by which they are governed. Rumfitt asserts that the key problem is in fact prolonged, continuous underfunding of the Crown Court system under successive governments [Ref: Guardian].
Another argument is that jury trials have no connection to the backlog [Ref: Justice]. Studies pinpoint several factors: high rates of ineffective trials, delays due to Covid and an increase in complex cases [Ref: National Audit Office]; worsening working conditions and industrial action among criminal defence barristers [Ref: Law Society]; pressure on prison capacity [Ref: National Audit Office] – which some would blame partly on jury trials increasing incarceration rates. For some, removing trial by jury would simply move the problem to the lower courts [Ref: Reuters].
However, those in favour of reducing the number of trials by jury point to the country being at a ‘critical juncture’ and that urgent action is needed to ‘reduce the risk of total system collapse’ [Ref: BBC]. Moreover, because of this chaos in the system, jury trials enable defendants to “game” the system by electing for a trial in the hope that they would be found not guilty by a jury or their victim would drop out because of delays [Ref: Telegraph]. According to former Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, defendants will often elect jury trials because they believe it gives them a better chance – either of acquittal or a lighter sentence [Ref: Telegraph].
Striking a balance?
So, where should we strike a balance between principle and practice? Can we justify reducing the right to trial by jury, a key principle upon which our democracy is based, in order to solve what is essentially a practical problem? Or, is this ancient principle no longer fit for the modern world? Does the harm suffered by victims and defendants, forced to wait years for justice, and the increased risk of trials collapsing as time passes, outweigh the advantages and protections of our right to trial by jury? Is trial by jury, in the words of Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, ‘a recipe for incompetence and bias’, or in those of Winston Churchill the ‘supreme protection…. for ordinary individuals against the state’?
ESSENTIAL READING
It is crucial for debaters to have read the articles in this section, which provide essential information and arguments for and against the debate motion. Students will be expected to have additional evidence and examples derived from independent research, but they can expect to be criticised if they lack a basic familiarity with the issues raised in the essential reading.
FOR
Here’s a radical way to save England’s collapsing justice system: get rid of juries
Simon Jenkins The Guardian 5 May 2025
Scrap jury trials for thousands of offences, says Jack Straw
Charles Hymas The Telegraph 12 January 2025
Abolish the Jury? Does the concept of the jury still comport with today’s society?
Maclen Stanley JD, Ed.M Psychology Today 29 November 2021
Research warns of “systematic weaknesses in jury decisions”
Kerra Maddern University of Exeter 31 July 2024
AGAINST
Labour’s attack on the right to trial by jury
Luke Gittos Spiked 27 May 2025
Why you should care about the right to trial by jury
Hannah Quirk Open Democracy 15 July 2020
Reducing jury trials will imperil confidence in the justice system
Letters The Guardian 17 December 2024
The Leveson review: Cutting jury trials is not the only option
Cassia Rowland Institute for Government 11 July 2025
BACKGROUND
A brief history of trial by jury: ‘The lamp that shows freedom lives’
Philip Dykes Hong Kong Free Press 11 September 2022
The Blackstone Lecture: Trial by Jury – past and present
Lady Justice Hallett Judiciary UK 20 May 2017
Five steps to help fix chaos in our courts
The Law Society 19 December 2022
IN DEPTH
Jury trial and serious fraud. Why is jury trial a human rights issue?
Justice Magazine
Guest blog: How will restricting jury trial and reducing jury numbers affect the delivery of justice?
Tana Adkin QC The Bar Council
Courts reform to see quicker justice for victims and keeps streets safe
Ministry of Justice and The Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP Gov.uk 12 December 2024
IN THE NEWS
Trial by jury is an ancient right
Dennis Kavanagh Spiked 22 July 2025
Jury-free trials recommended to save courts from ‘collapse
Sima Kotecha and Paul Glynn BBC News 9 July 2025
Reducing number of jury trials being considered by government to clear courts backlog
Tim Baker Sky News 16 December 2024
Some jury trials may be scrapped in England and Wales as court backlog hits record high
Guardian staff The Guardian 12 December 2024
Court delays unacceptable for victims and defendants, says ex-judge
Zahra Fatima BBC News 14 December 2024
Suspected criminals exploiting court delays with not guilty pleas, says DPP
Charles Hymas The Telegraph 3 December 2024
New Victims’ Commissioner survey looks at impact of court delays on victims
Baroness Newlove Victims’ Commissioner website 13 August 2024
Jury trials could be scrapped for thousands under plans to reduce backlogs
Charles Hymas The Telegraph 1 December 2024