Amy Sage, Bristol North Socialist Party
Sir Brian Leveson’s proposal to remove the right to jury trials for thousands of defendants in England and Wales is yet another attack on our democratic rights. Framed as a response to the crisis of court backlogs, it is in fact an attempt to paper over the consequences of chronic underfunding and mismanagement by successive Tory and Labour governments. As always, it’s working-class people who are expected to pay the price.
Historically, the right to trial by jury has been a vital defence against the unchecked power of the state. It is a key, if limited, democratic safeguard within a system that overwhelmingly serves the interests of the capitalist class. To strip people of this right, especially for serious offences like sexual assault, racially aggravated assault, or child abduction, undermines one of the few elements of the justice system that involves any level of public accountability.
The 2008 case of the Kingsnorth Six, where Greenpeace activists were acquitted by a jury after occupying a coal power station, highlights this point. The jury accepted that their actions aimed to prevent greater environmental harm. While the legal system on the whole upholds the status quo, this case showed that juries can at times reflect public concerns and act with a sense of fairness not always present in the courts. In an era where protest, especially around climate change, is increasingly criminalised, this democratic safeguard remains significant.
The criminal justice system, including the courts, police and prisons, is used as a tool of repression by the capitalist bosses. There must be mechanisms for dealing with those who genuinely pose a threat to others, but these mechanisms must be democratically controlled by the working class, properly funded, and rooted in the communities they serve.
Today’s crisis in the courts is no accident. It is the result of decades of austerity: court closures, cuts to legal aid, and staff shortages have brought the system to the brink. Now, instead of reversing these cuts, the government is suggesting we simply erode fundamental rights. This is not about justice, it’s about cost-cutting.
With the super-rich capitalist bosses in charge, the courts and criminal justice system are ultimately designed to uphold the existing social order, one based on the exploitation of the many by the few. Most crime is rooted in the alienation, poverty and inequality that this system produces. Without the misery and desperation created by capitalism, crime would significantly decline.
We fight to defend and expand every democratic right we have. The Socialist Party demands a fully-funded, publicly owned justice system, run under democratic workers’ control and management. This means courts, police and probation services that are accountable to local communities and trade unions, not to unelected judges and ministers. Judges and key officials should be elected, subject to recall, and paid a worker’s wage, not the inflated six-figure salaries many now enjoy.
The removal of jury trials would mark a major step backward by concentrating more power in the hands of unelected officials and removing one of the few means by which ordinary people can play a role in the justice system. We must resist this attempt to push through regressive changes under the guise of reform.
Through a socialist transformation of society, with working-class people in charge of society, democratically planning what we need not what benefits the interests of a few, can truly deliver a justice system that serves the interests of the majority of us.
