2025-12-03
12 分钟This is The Guardian.
These reforms are bold, Mr Speaker, but they're necessary.
I'm clear that jury trials will continue to be the cornerstone of the system for the most serious offences.
The Justice Secretary wants to scrap some jury trials to reduce the backlog in British courts.
It's a system we know is in urgent need of reform.
He's calling it a once in a generation reform.
It's radically reducing the number of jury trials.
The backlog means that justice is being delayed day after day and has really huge human consequences.
But David Lamme is facing opposition from lawyers, judges and MPs in Parliament.
Our centuries-old right to jury trial is not an ornament of the past.
It is the living example of a fair trial.
From the Guardians Today in Focus, this is the latest with me, Lucy Hoff.
I'm joined by Alexandra Topping, senior reporter at The Guardian.
So David Lamy has just stood up in the comments to announce these really quite radical plans to overhaul the justice system.
He's had to row back a little bit.
from what he wanted to do, hasn't he?
But what's he just said?
Well, Lame has just stood up in the Houses of Commons and said that the majority of cases,
of criminal cases,
will now be heard not in front of a jury, but in front of a magistrate or a judge.