The British government wants to scrap jury trials in order to clear the outstanding caseload
Record numbers of victims are waiting more than a year for their cases to be heard in the UK, and clearing the backlog “could take nearly 300 years,” Courts minister Sarah Sackman has said.
According to Ministry of Justice figures, there is currently a backlog of 80,061 cases in Britain’s crown courts, and 370,722 cases in lower magistrates’ courts, an increase of 5% and 11% on last year, respectively. Some 6,000 crown court cases have been waiting for more than two years, with 2,000 rape cases held up for more than a year.
The closure of courts and government institutions during the Covid-19 lockdowns is directly responsible for soaring wait times, with the crown court’s caseload doubling since 2020.
Speaking to Sky News on Friday, Sackman claimed that the ruling Labour Party is “starting to stabilize the backlog,” but “at this pace, it could take nearly 300 years to clear the backlog to pre-pandemic levels.”
Britain’s outgoing prime minister, Keir Starmer, has added to this backlog by pushing for the prosecution of hundreds of people for expressing right-wing and anti-immigrant sentiment online, and by proscribing Palestine Action, a decision that has led to the arrest and prosecution of more than 3,300 people.
In the meantime, Starmer has freed thousands of hardened criminals from British prisons to make way for those convicted of speech crimes. More than 1,000 convicts were released early in 2024, as British police rounded up people who participated in or encouraged anti-immigration riots. Up to 7,000 more will be released early this September, with the Conservative Party warning that “killers and rapists, including the evil rape gang perpetrators” will be among them.
Starmer’s government has argued that the court backlog can be tackled with increased investment, and by handling more cases at magistrates’ courts, where they are typically resolved faster.
However, the prime minister has also utilized the crisis to reshape the UK’s justice system. A bill put forward by the government earlier this year would abolish jury trials for all but the most serious offenses, such as murder and rape. The bill has been condemned by lawyers and civil rights groups, with the Bar Council calling it “an unpopular, untested and poorly evidenced change to the jury system,” and the Society of Asian Lawyers defending juries as a “crucial check against state overreach.”
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