Earlier
this month, the Lord Chancellor, Alex Norris abandoned controversial proposals
for judge-only criminal trials where the maximum sentence was three years or
less, which he inherited from his predecessor David Lammy. However, he retained
plans to curtail juries in fraud cases. The Bill currently provides for
judge-only trials in ‘complex or lengthy’ offences including fraud, tax
evasion, money laundering, bribery and insider dealing.
In
an open letter to peers last week, however, former Southwark Crown Court
resident judge Geoffrey Rivlin KC noted: ‘Most of these offences are regular
fare at one court or another. Some of them, eg insider dealing, terrorist
funding and bribery, might be thought as particularly well suited to jury
trial.’
The
retired judge, who has more than 50 years’ experience at the Criminal Bar and
on the Bench, dismissed the argument that juries are incapable of understanding
complex financial cases, citing not only his experience but that of other
senior judges who have seen juries deal effectively with such cases.
He
questioned the statutory threshold, given there is no clear definition in the
Bill of when a case becomes sufficiently ‘complex’ or ‘lengthy’ to justify
trial without jury, or how the ‘public interest’ should be applied.
Rivlin
highlighted the lack of safeguards, since a judge sitting alone with no right
of appeal and who ‘will know far less about the case than either the
prosecution or defence’ has the power to order the case proceed without a jury.
He
raised constitutional concerns about the power to add to or amend the category
of judge-only offences via statutory instrument. Rivlin wrote: ‘For centuries
jury trial has been recognised as a vital part of our constitutional fabric or
structure, no less than any institution of government or basic liberty of the
individual; and the failure of ‘[Lord] Leveson, [David] Lammy [MP] and [Sarah]
Sackman [MP] to acknowledge this is as surprising as it is alarming.
‘Once
it is acknowledged that trial by jury forms part of our unwritten constitution,
it follows that there must be a “right” to it, for otherwise the statement is
devoid of any meaning.’
Finally, he questioned whether the change would make any meaningful difference to the backlog, given that fraud trials are not necessarily more complex or lengthy than terrorism, murder, gang grooming and rape cases.
