Your article on a possible U-turn for magistrates to sit with a judge in a proposed “swift court” throws up a major obstacle (Plans to limit jury trials in England and Wales may be watered down after backlash, 12 January). Where are these additional magistrates going to come from? The magistracy is the linchpin of our criminal justice system and it is already stretched.
Recruitment of suitable volunteers is not easy. The commitment is high, and the criteria are quite properly tight. In January 2022 there was a £1m campaign to recruit 4,000 new magistrates. By April 2024, only 2,008 new magistrates had been appointed. The success rate of applicants in the year ending March 2025 was only 22%.
There is also another proposal that affects the magistracy: to extend their sentencing powers up to 18 months and remove the right to jury trial for offences that fall within that level of sentencing. Those cases will stay in the magistrates court. Last year 47% of custodial sentences (23,059 cases) imposed in the crown court were for 18 months or less. On a very basic assessment, this gives an indication of the massive increase in workload that will remain in the magistrates court.
Even if this proposal alone goes forward, there will have to be a gargantuan increase in magistrates. This returns to the question, where are these additional magistrates going to come from? Recent recruitment statistics are not encouraging. I can see only one pragmatic solution. To create a “trial only” panel within the magistracy (with faster recruitment, shorter training and more flexible sitting requirements), to sit alongside a fully trained presiding justice, and with a right of appeal. This would enable a far wider cross-section of the community to apply, and it might just work.
Janet Carter
Retired barrister, Leeds
• The government’s recent focus on the Canadian judge-only system referenced in your report as offering support to its proposals to remove about half of the cases still eligible to be tried by a jury misses that Canada also has time limits for cases to be heard. Claims that Canada’s backlog fell due to a judge-only trial system is not accurate.
The government has stated that it would seek to place restrictions on jury trials even if the backlog were at a sustainable level. However, the lord chancellor has not explained how this ideology fits with his previous finding, in the Lammy review, that juries are the success story of the criminal justice system as they do not deliver different verdicts between white and black, Asian and minority ethnic defendants.
A panel of a judge and two magistrates would not comprise the jury group participation that safeguards against verdicts impacting disproportionately on minority communities.
On 13 January, 58 out of the 516 courtrooms in England and Wales were vacant – 11% of all courts. The Prisoner Escort and Custody Services continue to deliver defendants late to court, with there often being insufficient staff to take defendants into the dock. There remains a lack of barristers due to lack of implementation of the legal aid increase.
Addressing these issues would reduce the backlog in 2026. Instead, the focus on reducing jury trials (about 2% of cases), and setting up a new court, is draining resources away from immediate action to cut delays for complainants/victims waiting to give evidence in a trial.
The jury trial as currently constituted reflects the legal history, tradition and culture of England and Wales. The Bar Council stands firm in protecting it from this further unnecessary erosion.
Kirsty Brimelow KC
Chair of the Bar Council
• David Lammy is right that Canadian-style reforms should be considered in England. The problem is that his proposed reforms are nothing like the Canadian system. Defendants there can elect to be tried by judge alone, but have an absolute right to trial by jury much like our current system that Lammy is keen to dismantle. Interestingly Canada also abolished lay magistrates – the very cohort Lammy wishes to try the new intermediate offences – in the 1980s because they were so unreliable. Either Lammy completely misunderstood what he went to see, or he is deliberately misrepresenting the Canadian system for political effect. Either way, we should be worried that he is the minister pushing this proposed reform.
Paul Keleher KC
London
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