“Jury trials are fundamental to our democracy. We must protect them”
25th November 2025: Telegraph: The Telegraph view writes about David Lammy's announcement that he intends to end the right to trial by jury.
“Jury trials are fundamental to our democracy. We must protect them”.
David Lammy MP, then shadow justice secretary, wrote those words in these pages in 2020. They were right then, and they are right now...
It is a surprise, then, that Mr Lammy is now leading the charge for precisely this policy, calling for lone judges to preside over trials... But while the Justice Secretary’s position has evidently changed, the facts have not.
It remains the case that the right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers is a valuable check on the behaviour of the justice system, particularly so in politicised cases where groupthink among the judiciary could undermine public confidence. It remains the case, too, that there is value in aggregating the judgments of many independent thinkers, rather than allowing a single individual with their own flaws and inclinations to preside alone.
That such safeguards are necessary has been recognised in unequivocal terms since Magna Carta..."