Plans to reform the UK’s criminal justice system – including the scrapping of jury trials for some offences and reduced sentences for those who plead guilty – are all part of larger “reforms” that would empower tyrannical authoritarianism.
Former senior judge and current Investigatory Powers Commissioner Brian Leveson made the news this week with the publication of his report recommending, among other things, “jury-free” trials, in order to “prevent the collapse of the criminal justice system”.
Note the language, by the way. “Jury-free“, not “jury-less“, as if juries are a food additive we should avoid, rather than a right guaranteed in British law for over 800 years.
This is not new. “Replacing”, “updating” or otherwise “reforming” Jury trials has been on the worldwide agenda for years now.
Within weeks of “Covid” starting, Scotland moved to suspend jury trials entirely (a move so unpopular they reversed it within 24 hours). At the same time, noted lawyers wrote opinion pieces for the Guardian headlined:
“Coronavirus has stopped trials by jury, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing”
Also in the Guardian, Simon Jenkins wrote that Covid had presented an “opportunity” to get rid of the old-fashioned jury trial system. He repeated the idea in another column a couple of months ago.
Less than a year later, Scotland wanted to waive jury trials again, this time in rape cases, to “protect the victim”. They scrapped that plan, too.
Not long after that, in the US, the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict caused the predictable pundits to rant and rave about the “broken” jury system.
In January 2023, the French government announced it would be scrapping jury trials for rape cases and all crimes with a maximum sentence of 15-20 years, citing a need to clear the backlog and make the court system more efficient.
Academic papers are even discussing the possibility of replacing jurors with ChatGPT-like artificial intelligences. A possibility to horrendous to contemplate.
Hellbound and Down 