Britain's Justice System in Crisis
The justice system in England and Wales is facing what experts describe as potential total system collapse, with criminal courts accumulating a staggering backlog of almost 80,000 cases. Some hearings have been postponed until 2029, while rape cases now experience two-year delays, leading to twice as many complainants withdrawing compared to five years ago.
Britain's prison population threatens to break the 100,000 barrier, doubling since the 1990s. Alarmingly, one fifth of cells contain remand prisoners spending months awaiting trial, creating what critics call a parody of justice.
The Case Against Jury Trials
Justice Secretary David Lammy has proposed radical reforms that would confine juries to extreme crimes such as rape, manslaughter and murder, with most other cases defaulting to a single judge. This year's Leveson review of criminal courts warned of system collapse and proposed most trials go before a judge with two magistrates in attendance.
The author reveals having served on juries three times, describing the experience as a massive waste of time and money. Cases that should take hours instead take days, with jurors often struggling to understand complex fraud cases. The piece argues that few cases actually require a jury's deliberation.
Unlike most European countries that use judges and examining magistrates, Britain persists with what critics call dramatised rituals. Almost no other European nation uses juries routinely, treating trials as matters of contested evidence requiring scientific expertise rather than theatrical courtroom performances.
Who Benefits From the Current System?
The article makes a provocative claim: The only people who love juries are barristers, for whom juries represent both audience and bread and butter. Many criminals also prefer juries, believing they're more lenient than judges.
Britain ends up imprisoning far more people than countries without juries. England and Wales imprison 145 citizens per 100,000, compared to jury-free Germany's 71, or the Netherlands and Norway's 54. The jury-loving United States imprisons 541 per 100,000.
The legal profession is fiercely defending the jury system, accusing reformers of wanting to return to the star chamber. But with the system broken and justice being denied, the author argues that professional freemasonry cannot stand in the way of essential reform.
