Thomas Butler, Liverpool North Socialist Party
One of the pieces of legislation listed in the King’s Speech that Starmer’s government is aiming to roll out is the Courts and Tribunals Bill. Measures dressed up as ‘criminal justice reform’ and ‘modernisation’ include the removal of the right to a jury in criminal cases handled by crown courts, currently a guaranteed right for all defendants.
This is another instance of the Labour government infringing on civil liberties, and is a deeply unpopular move among the public and professionals within the courts.
However if it is so unpopular due to it being an obvious curbing of rights, why is Starmer pressing on with it? Because ultimately it benefits them.
One of the main pressing issues that has faced the entire criminal justice system, including the courts, is the chronic lack of funding. Since 2010, funding for the Ministry of Justice is 14% lower and, combined with population growth, is in reality 24% lower. With hundreds of courts closing due to austerity, it is hardly a shock that the court system as a whole is caught up in hopeless backlog.
Within the last six years, the backlog of cases at crown courts has doubled to over 80,000. To alleviate this the government is aiming to cut juries out and mete out ‘justice’ at maximum speed. Many trials would be overseen and decided on purely by the judge. Specifically, those in which ‘a likely prison sentence of up to three years’ is to be imposed.
It appears that this ‘reformed’ system is almost predicting a defendant’s sentence before any trial has taken place. This predication is detrimental to whether one is allowed to be judged by their peers or not.
Attacks on our rights
There are also political ramifications to this bill. By eliminating a jury, it leaves the judges in full control. Recently we have seen increasing numbers of cases in where a jury refuses to convict individuals who have broken deeply unpopular laws. This has included people protesting against environmental destruction and the UK government’s support for the Israeli state’s war on Gaza. No doubt this has been to the frustration of the Labour government, seeking to represent the interests of the big bosses without ordinary people fighting back against them.
Judges are much more reliable agencies to carry out their laws, irrespective of public mood. Judges in crown courts sit under a British coat of arms in the courtroom, and act in the interests of the British capitalist state.
A dangerous precedent is being set which Labour will attempt to ramp up in the future to more easily trample over civil liberties to try and sustain their austerity agenda. It’s no wonder clampdowns on our rights, including the right to protest, happen when struggle is increasing and those at the top are in a weaker position.
The right to be judged by a jury should be fought for and defended, including by the trade union movement who have seen the courts side with the bosses against striking workers time and time again.
The repeated attacks on the right to a jury trial show that unless the criminal justice system is controlled by the working class then no rights are safe! Instead, we see working-class people sealed off from the criminal justice system, with power resting more and more with the control of the state and its loyal judges.
