Number of juries isn’t the problem itself. It’s availability of court buildings, lack of legal professionals to try cases in court, cost of staffing and services for those buildings and the increased time it takes to bring a jury trial to court (it takes on average of 284 days for a case to move through the magistrates court and 695 days through the crown court according to the National Audit Office).
This particular proposal, part of a range, is to have an extra tier in the crown court to deal with lower category cases, such as fraud and minor theft cases so that the bigger, more complicated violent crimes, rapes and murders can be prioritised.
Also worth noting, we don’t have right to jury trial enshrined in UK law, only the right to a fair trial. I actually think this could help reduce the issue but the biggest problem is lack of funding.
Number of juries isn’t the problem itself. It’s availability of court buildings, lack of legal professionals to try cases in court, cost of staffing and services for those buildings and the increased time it takes to bring a jury trial to court (it takes on average of 284 days for a case to move through the magistrates court and 695 days through the crown court according to the National Audit Office).
This particular proposal, part of a range, is to have an extra tier in the crown court to deal with lower category cases, such as fraud and minor theft cases so that the bigger, more complicated violent crimes, rapes and murders can be prioritised.
Also worth noting, we don’t have right to jury trial enshrined in UK law, only the right to a fair trial. I actually think this could help reduce the issue but the biggest problem is lack of funding.