Reasonable Sense

Joanna Hardy-Susskind tweets:

Hello members of the House of Lords. Welcome to the debate on jury trials. Pull up a seat - everyone disagrees and the entire thing is on fire. But, sadly for you, it lands in your lap today. First, don’t let them move sexual assaults and death by careless driving and some s20 GBHs and things like that to summary trial if the sentence is two years or below. You know that’s not right. You know they should not be tried summarily with no right of election.

Second, have a think if Magistrates (respected, trained, advised) should be locking citizens up for up to two years. Honestly, just think about it. It’s ok to say it out loud. I’ll go first: Volunteers - even trained and experienced and respected ones - should not be doing that.

Third, do you really think they’ll be giving this new cohort of serious either way trials to Lay Magistrates? By design or necessity they will - of course - end up before District Judges sitting alone who can sit for multiple days. Which is a BENCH DIVISION via the back door. Which is exactly, EXACTLY, what the government had to abandon in the Commons. Honestly. Very few Lay Magistrates can volunteer for two to three days at a time. And, those who can are likely to be retired or economically comfortable. Part heard trials go off for weeks or months. They won’t do it. Honestly, even if they start doing it, they’ll soon stop. The ‘serious’ (I use the term re: sentence only) either way offences of 12-24 months will soon find their way to a Judge alone for trial. Don’t let them introduce a Bench Division in a different building.

Fourth, do you really think this is going to speed things up? The Mags backlog is huge and growing. The Crown Court backlog is showing signs of stabilising AND a whole host of measures have arrived recently that will begin to bite. They’re moving one queue to another. What will happen is the Crown Court backlog will fall and will be held up as a success story. But, beneath it, will be a log-jammed Magistrates’ Court, with a traffic jam of human misery. That’s not what success looks like. It would be like the Health Secretary saying ‘Look! No queue for surgery!’ But then the camera pans to the GP queue and those waiting are gnawing off their own arms and extracting their appendix with a spoon.

Fifth, just don’t get me started on the diversity of the Magistracy. They can run all the expensive (!) recruitment campaigns they like - but no one is fixing this:

Sixth, if you do somehow think that death by careless driving or sexual assault with sentences less than two years should be tried in a summary fashion in a growing queue (ahem), then how do you feel about the automatic right of appeal being removed? Because this is all quite bonkers now, isn’t it? Let’s see what the Government say about the stats:

Hold on to your socks - they want to restrict something (important) that only amounts to four per cent of receipts, but appears to be rather successful (if 60 per cent fail, HOW MANY SUCCEED?) because they think - in light of their own reforms - more people might appeal? My god. And Crown Court Judges can’t speak publicly on this issue - and I don’t seek to speak for them - but if I were sitting as a Judge tasked with determining ‘leave to appeal’ applications from the Magistrates’ Court I would be very worried.

They say the proceedings in the Mags will be recorded. Honestly, I read court transcripts all the time and they are seldom short. When is a Circuit Judge (tasked, LET US NOT FORGET, with conquering the backlog) going to peruse the proceedings in a six witness harassment trial? When is a Circuit Judge going to find the time to watch CCTV, or ABEs, or consider legal argument from the summary jurisdiction? When are they going to write their reasons for allowing or refusing leave to appeal?

And will these applications for appeal be concisely drafted by experienced lawyers or will they be wheelbarrows full of handwritten dossiers and letters to MPs and AI slop because not everyone in the Mags will qualify for Legal Aid? I honestly think in the most simple of cases it would be quicker to hear the case again than wade through the transcript of the entire thing, the arguments, the law, the exhibits, and draft a response. Oh, and ask the government if they will ensure those subject to these new powers and new provisions will definitely qualify for Legal Aid so a lawyer can assist them and be remunerated at a rate commensurate with the seriousness of the offence. Honestly. Ask them that twice. Don’t get me started on some fraud trials randomly losing juries. What’s that even about? Juries aren’t stupid. They understand dishonesty when they see it.

So. There you go. It’s a failure of a Bill. It won’t work on its own terms, it won’t work on any reasonable sense of justice, it will simply move the queue for victims, and the underlying stats are laughable. Please. Do enjoy your debate today.