Government proposals erode the right to be judged by our own peers
02 Dec 2025
1 minute read
News
The UK government has today (December 2) published its response to the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts Part I.
“The government’s proposals go too far in eroding our fundamental right to be judged by a jury of our own peers,” said Law Society of England and Wales vice president Brett Dixon.
“Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations, including two magistrates sitting alongside a judge in the new court, retained an element of lay participation in determining a person’s guilt or innocence. The government’s proposals remove this.
“Allowing a single judge, operating in an under-resourced system, to decide guilt in a serious and potentially life-changing case is a dramatic departure from our shared values.
“The government cannot justify stripping away this fundamental right without publishing clear evidence that putting more cases in the hands of a single judge will tackle the horrendous backlogs in our courts.
“The Leveson proposals, while an uncomfortable compromise, were understandable given the extensive challenges the criminal justice system faces including unacceptable delays for victims, witnesses and defendants. Going beyond them is not.
“The criminal court backlogs are the result of decades of underinvestment in the criminal justice system, with justice spending down 24% since 2007/2008.*”
See the latest figures which show 361,027 outstanding cases in the magistrates’ court and 78,329 in the Crown Court.
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