Suddenly, the government’s criminal justice reforms are back on track. Barristers’ leaders, with tacit support from Crown court judges, had been arguing for weeks that Sir Brian Leveson’s planned efficiency measures should be implemented before any limits to jury trials were introduced.
Ministers had seemed unsure of what their proposals would mean – for example, whether a defendant sent for jury trial in the Crown court under existing legislation could be tried by a judge alone once reforms had been brought in.
Timing was equally vague. There would be legislation ‘in due course’, the justice secretary told MPs in a written statement on 2 December. Pressed further on 16 December, he said a bill would not be introduced before ‘the spring’.
Last month, there were reports that the government’s proposals were being watered down to limit the risk of opposition from the House of Lords. Ministers had rejected Leveson’s plan for a Crown court bench division comprising a judge and two magistrates, perhaps because not enough magistrates would be available. Might restoring the former judge’s plan get the legislation through?
Leveson published part one of his report on 9 July. ‘We will now consider all his recommendations and will respond, in full, ahead of legislating in the autumn,’ Lammy’s predecessor Shabana Mahmood told reporters on the same day.
We still don’t know why the bill was delayed from autumn 2025 to spring 2026. But the government’s decision to publish part two of Leveson’s report on Wednesday of this week looked as if it was meant to keep the heat off ministers. Lammy and his colleagues were answering MPs’ questions a day earlier. Not for the first time, they could have batted challenges away by saying they were waiting for a report.
They knew what Leveson was going to say, of course. The Ministry of Justice supported him with a review team on which no fewer than 43 advisers had served – though not all at the same time. And, as Leveson said this week, he worked very closely with the courts minister Sarah Sackman.
Far from distancing themselves from Leveson on Tuesday, justice ministers embraced proposals he was about to publish. Lammy said his department was already looking at the idea of prison vans being allowed to use bus lanes, given the delays in delivering defendants to court.
Most significant of all, a junior minister disclosed that Sackman’s reform bill would be introduced ‘next month’. Lammy himself expected it would become law ‘towards the end of this year’. If the logjam had been in Downing Street, it looked as if the prime minister was now back on side.
What, then, will the bill say? On 2 December, Lammy announced that ‘the right of defendants to elect for a jury trial will be removed, meaning that it will be for the court to determine where a case will be heard based on the severity of offences’.
As Leveson recalled this week, he had not gone that far. His proposal was to remove the defendant’s right to elect in cases with a maximum sentence of two years – though he had accepted that removing the right to jury trial entirely in cases that may currently be tried by magistrates was an option the government might consider.
Speaking to reporters this week, he said the decision by ministers to remove the right to elect in all cases was ‘entirely understandable’. It avoided decisions on which cases should be made summary only.
Leveson had also proposed that a defendant facing trial in the Crown court should be allowed to elect for trial by judge alone, subject to the trial judge’s consent. Ministers ‘have not taken that forward’, he observed.
Asked if he stood by his proposal for magistrates to sit with a judge in the bench division, Leveson simply replied ‘that’s my proposal’. In his report, though, he said it was ‘crucial to understand that the effectiveness of the court system is not only measured by speed or cost-efficiency, but also by its ability to deliver justice fairly to all participants’. Some saw this as endorsing his original recommendation of retaining a lay element in the Crown court.
More broadly, the Criminal Bar Association commended Leveson for ‘shining a light, in forensic detail, on the chronic underfunding and manifest, cost-wasting inefficiencies’ of the criminal justice system. The Bar Council praised him for supporting its proposals, ‘including improving listing practices and case management, making better use of technology and remote hearings, ensuring defendants are delivered to court on time and addressing funding in the justice system’. The Law Society welcomed Leveson’s emphasis on recruiting more defence solicitors and dealing with cases at an early stage.
But the legal profession remains united in opposing government plans to curb jury trials. Battle lines are now being drawn for the fight ahead.
joshua@rozenberg.net
No comments yet