Andy Burnham pressured to safeguard jury trials after legal backlash
The country’s criminal barristers have demanded an urgent guarantee from incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham to save jury trials.
The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) has ramped up pressure on Burnham to officially drop “misguided” clauses in the Courts and Tribunals Bill that would curb the historic right to a trial by your peers.
The controversial Bill was rushed into the House of Commons by the current justice minister, David Lammy, after Sir Brian Leveson’s independent review of the justice system aimed at reducing court backlogs, which proposed curtailing jury trials.
Under the proposed changes, jury trials would be reserved for the most severe crimes like murder and rape, while serious fraud and complex cases would be moved to judge-only trials.
Geoffrey Robertson KC, founding head of Doughty Street Chambers and Sir Keir Starmer’s former mentor, has described the move as “a cure worse than the disease”.
Writing to its 3,500 members on Monday, Riel Karmey-Jones KC, Chair, and Andrew Thomas KC, Vice Chair of the CBA, said: “Trial by jury is the lamp that shows that freedom lives—we need an answer now, not in September.”
The Telegraph reported that Burnham told allies he is committed to scrapping the plans when he enters Downing Street.
MoJ challenged on Crown Court Cases data
The MoJ drew up the policy in a bid to tackle the backlog in the criminal justice system. The courts minister, Sarah Sackman KC, said recently that some cases involving severe crimes including rape are not getting court dates until 2029 or 2030, prompting victims to pull out.
Last month, the government published its latest figures for the first quarter of 2026, showing there are 80,061 open cases in the Crown Court. That represented a slight decrease from 80,098 in the previous quarter but a five per cent increase on the same period in the previous year.
Previously, the government estimated that the backlog could reach 200,000 by 2035 without its intervention.
Commenting on the fgures, the Bar Council said it casts serious doubts over the government’s plans to move cases from the Crown Court to the magistrates’ court under its proposals to restrict jury trials. Kirsty Brimelow KC, Chair of the Bar Council, said, “The evidence is clear: more sitting days, intense targeted listing of offences with vulnerable witnesses, complainants or defendants and improved infrastructure reduce waiting times and decrease the backlog.”
Karmy-Jones KC added: “It’s high time the Government ditched its ill-conceived attack on the right to trial by jury. The justification for these plans has never been there — these figures show MPs have been misled by assumptions dressed up as evidence.”