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30 March 2007
Issue: 7266 / Categories: Legal News , Public , Procedure & practice , Human rights
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Peers scupper non-jury plans

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Lawyers and civil rights campaigners have applauded moves by the House of Lords to delay government plans to eradicate juries in complex fraud trials.

On 20 March, peers voted by 216 to 143 to delay the Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill until the next Parliamentary session.

This was the government’s third bid to get rid of juries in serious fraud. The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, has threatened to use the Parliament Act to force the Bill onto the statute book in the next Parliamentary session.
The government claims major trials are too much for jurors and that some cases have fallen apart because of this, such as the 21-month, £60m Jubilee Line case.

Moving the amendment, Lord Kingsland said: “Jury trial has been the central component in the conduct of all serious criminal trials for about the past 700 years. The contribution it has made to the preservation of the liberty of the individual and the legitimacy of government is quite incalculable.”

Law Society president Fiona Woolf says: “The solution to the

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