Jury trials sit at the heart of the criminal justice system in England and Wales. The opportunity to put your case before 12 of your peers is so fundamental to how we enact justice, many consider it to be a constitutional right.
Notwithstanding this virtue, there can be no argument that jury trials present a logistical challenge that other parts of the justice system do not have to grapple with (or certainly not to the same extent). This challenge has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying restrictions.
These logistical challenges—and, in particular, the pandemic—have been used by many to explain the fact that the courts of England and Wales are suffering from a significant and growing backlog of cases. Someone arrested in 2021 for a serious criminal offence may now have to wait until 2023 to have their case heard.
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