Without jury trials, there is no justice:

David Lammy, the justice secretary, told The Times that the scale of the backlog – which has reached nearly 80,000 cases – is failing victims as he warned that “justice delayed is justice denied”

Lammy is expected to announce that he will scrap the right to trial by jury in “either way” cases, where defendants have the choice to have their cases heard in the magistrates’ or crown court.

Last year there were an estimated 13,000 either way cases – including theft and handling stolen goods, burglary, assault causing actual bodily harm, fraud, dangerous driving and possession of drugs with intent to supply – went before juries. 

Or you could spend more money and hire more judges and judicial staff? As usual, the real reason for the backlog is that governments after government have made cuts to the justice system.

But I suggest connecting the dots. All those people being arrested for protesting Palestine, they won’t have the right to a jury trial either. Which means that juries can’t nullify the law by refusing to convict.


Oh yes, she’s a terrorist.

The war on terror, as an aside, has reached the point many of us predicted at its start: anything the government wants to say is terrorism, is terrorism. As a rule I oppose most strengtheners. A crime is not more of a crime if it is motivated by hate. We already have motivation based modifiers in law (the difference between manslaughter and murder is intent) and those are enough.

But terrorism is particularly egregious because the way we define it is completely arbitrary at this point: it’s just “whatever a government says is terrorism, is terrorism.” Even in the past it was bullshit, because “killing civilians to effect political change” is something governments do all the time, but don’t call terrorism. The biggest terrorist organization in the world right now isn’t Palestinian Action, it’s Israel. At least by any sane definition. But even there, who cares? The actual crime isn’t “terrorism”, it’s genocide and the penalty for that is either execution or life imprisonment.

The UK government is becoming one of the most authoritarian and repressive in the world. To end jury trials for a huge class of people because they can’t be bothered to tax rich people like themselves is the very definition of tyranny, especially in Britain, the very mother of the right to be tried by ones peers, not some appointed judge who will often rule exactly as those who appointed them want.

Pathetic.

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