Who would decide whether or not there was a "public interest" in a jury trial of a charge other than murder, manslaughter or rape? Crown Court judges did not sign up for this. This was not the job for which they applied. But they are employees of the same State that brought the prosecution, a salaried and pensionable reward for 30 years of success as nominally self-employed prosecutors.
We knew that this would happen if a former Director of Public Prosecutions became Prime Minister. The gauntlet is being thrown down, so we must pick it up. Let us rid ourselves of this wretched Government by reversing every erosion of trial by jury and of the other pillars of justice, such as double jeopardy and the right to silence, going back to the Home Secretaryship of Michael Howard, “Shadowed” as he was by Tony Blair in a grotesque bidding war against liberty that has gone on ever since, with Blair himself now on course to run our digital ID from his Viceregal Lodge in Gaza.
Judges get to see large quantities of material withheld from juries often because it is prejudicial. How does a judge who sees such information ignore it to make a decision on guilt or innocence?
ReplyDeleteThis is intentional, of course.
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