Trial by Jury: Proposed Restrictions Debate
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Adnan Hussain
Main Page: Adnan Hussain (Independent - Blackburn)Department Debates - View all Adnan Hussain's debates with the Ministry of Justice
Trial by Jury: Proposed Restrictions
Adnan Hussain Excerpts(2 days, 12 hours ago)
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Sarah Sackman
As I have made clear, we are investing in prison places. Only 500 were added in 14 years under the last Government, but we have committed money to the building of 14,000 new prison places as well as comprehensive sentencing reform. We have also committed £450 million to investment in our courts, whether it is used for court maintenance, additional funds for criminal legal aid, or additional—and now record—Crown court sitting days. However, as Sir Brian Leveson tells us, that is insufficient. That alone will not see a reduction in the delays affecting the victims about whom we have heard so much today. We must do what it takes, which necessitates both investment, which we are already beginning to make, and reform.
Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)
As a member of the Bar, I say this plainly: removing the right to jury trials is a reckless constitutional shortcut. As the Criminal Bar Association puts it, is not reform but retreat. Does the Minister agree that the right to choose between a jury and a judge-led trial must never be denied, and that the real solution lies in investing in the system that we have rather than dismantling its very foundations?
Sarah Sackman
I respect the hon. Gentleman as a fellow member of the Bar, but I also respect the views of Sir Brian Leveson, the Lord Chief Justice, the former Lord Chief Justice Sir Ian Burnett, and many other august legal minds who have themselves done so much to preserve our fundamental constitutional principles. What they understand is this: 90% of our current criminal trials do not take place with a jury, but what really is unfair, and what really does undermine fundamental constitutional rights, is a failure to deliver a timely trial. If the hon. Gentleman is asking victims of crime, or even those wrongly accused of a crime who want to clear their names, to wait two or three years for their day in court, that, I believe, is a denial of a constitutional right.