TV host Rob Rinder urges MPs to oppose jury curbs

Criminal barrister and TV host Rob Rinder, who rose to fame with TV series Judge Rinder, has joined a growing wave of lawyers to speak out against the government’s proposed curbs on jury trials – telling MPs that the reform amounts to ‘constitutional surrender’.

In a letter to MPs, who will be debating justice secretary David Lammy’s court reforms next Tuesday, Rinder said the proposal to strip jury trials from offences carrying a prison sentence of up to three years was ‘constitutional surrender’ and sent the message that ‘when the state seeks to take a person’s liberty, the voice of the public is optional’.

Rinder said: ‘Offences carrying three-year sentences are not minor. They are life altering. They include serious assault, theft that can end a career, offences that can destroy reputation, housing and family life. Picture an ordinary person in your constituency, caught in an allegation that turns on a moment, a misunderstanding, a single contested account. One charge, one conviction, and liberty is lost, a livelihood ended, a family placed under strain, a future permanently altered.’

In those moments, Rinder said, the question was simple. ‘Will judgment be handed down by the state alone, or shared with ordinary citizens who understand the texture of real lives? A jury does not guarantee perfection, but it does ensure that no single perspective, prejudice or institutional instinct decides a person’s fate.’

Rinder added: ‘My grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, fled tyranny in Europe. He loved this country because here the power of the state was checked by a jury of citizens. Around the world we see rights diminished not with a bang but with a shrug. Once surrendered they are rarely reclaimed intact.’

Urging MPs to oppose the curbs on jury trials, Rinder said opposition was not about nostalgia but trust in the public, constitutional inheritance and the idea that liberty is safeguarded by participation.