Judge-only trials scrapped as court backlog concerns continue

Justice Secretary Alex Norris has announced the government will not proceed with controversial plans to introduce judge-only trials in the Crown Court. The U-turn comes after concerns were raised by legal bodies about the impact on the justice system and victims' rights.

Mr Norris stated that introducing the necessary legislation for judge-only trials would have been "complicated to implement" and would have slowed down a wider package of reforms aimed at reducing court backlogs. He insisted that despite abandoning this specific measure, the government remains committed to seeing court backlogs fall within the current parliamentary term.

Criticism from the Criminal Bar Association

The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) had strongly opposed the proposals, warning that shifting thousands of cases to magistrates' courts would amount to "restricting juries by the back door." The association stated that magistrates' courts do not use juries, with cases heard by either volunteer magistrates or a professional district judge.

According to the CBA, the proposed changes would have moved approximately 25,000 cases annually, including an estimated 5,500 jury trials, to magistrates' courts. The association argued that magistrates are "completely unequipped to try" complex cases such as serious assaults, sexual assaults, and child abuse allegations. They also highlighted that the backlog of open court cases in magistrates' courts has already increased by 16% year-on-year, with some regions experiencing a rise of up to 40%, indicating a lack of capacity to absorb additional complex cases.

Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy echoed these concerns, describing the original proposals as a method of "scrapping the right to elect one and dumping those cases on magistrates whose backlog is at a record high."

Mr Norris did not specify the extent to which he expects the court backlogs to decrease without the judge-only trial measure. He indicated that further assessments would be published alongside his statements to Parliament, projecting a significant reduction in backlogs over the next decade due to other ongoing reforms.