Robertson KC Criticises Jury Trial Restrictions, Courts Bill

To coincide with this week’s committee stage of the Courts and Tribunals Bill, which threatens to significantly restrict jury trials, the Bar Council is publishing a polemical attack on the proposal by Geoffrey Robertson KC, founding head of Doughty Street Chambers.

In his treatise ‘ For Mercy’s Sake ’, Mr Robertson explains how the government has overlooked the constitutional importance of trial by jury – to stand up independently against the state and to extend mercy to defendants who deserve it. He suggests that the Bill will work to worsen delays in the court system and recommends alternative measures that can eliminate them.

Mr Robertson’s report traces the history of jury trials and their place in the unwritten constitution. It digs deeply into the new Bill with some surprising results. For example, under its regime, Clive Ponting could not have been tried by a jury because his Official Secrets Act prosecution had a maximum of two-years imprisonment. Peter Mandleson and Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, if they were ever to be prosecuted, could lose their right to jury trial both because their hypothetical trials would be “long” and probably “complex”.

In the report, Mr Roberston sets out the additional court time that could be required under the Government’s proposals in terms of the time for judges to write detailed judgments and time for preliminary hearings to determine likely sentence, as well as allocation proceedings.

He argues: “Once Leveson is seen for what it requires of court time and resources, jury removal may well be a cure worse than the disease... The Bill has been driven by Leveson’s somewhat exaggerated claim that unless jury trial is largely scrapped there is a real danger that the entire criminal justice system will collapse. This is not in fact a real danger, and in any event the government has already moved to inject more funds, to appoint more judges, to scrap the austerity era mistake of capping court hours, to bolster legal aid and so on. There is no danger of collapse, but there is a serious problem of court delays, which can be redressed in ways other than by diminishing trial by jury.”

Bar Council Chair, Kirsty Brimelow KC, said: “I hope many MPs will read this profound and professional analysis and stop the jury-wrecking parts of the Bill in its tracks.

“The Bar Council is the forceful opponent of government plans to curb trial by jury. In the debate so far, we have been concerned that the history and value of trial by jury has not been fully appreciated. Geoffrey Robertson KC has written an authoritative paper on juries and the Courts and Tribunals Bill for the Bar Council, pro bono. He is the founding head of Doughty Street Chambers, which is my chambers as well as the former professional home of great lawyers who entered politics.”

Geoffrey Robertson KC said: “This Bill – and the thinking upon which it is based – ignores not only the superiority of the jury as a fact finding tribunal over a bench of magistrates or a judge sitting alone, but its constitutional importance in having the power to act from its own conscience in political cases and in particular its role as a dispenser of mercy to defendants who deserve it and would otherwise be dealt with cruelly by strict application of the law to punish them. Labour is taking an axe to a piece of English heritage, one part of a criminal justice system which unlike the others, is actually trusted by most people.”

About Geoffrey Robertson KC

Mr Robertson has himself defended in many celebrated trials, going back to Oz and Gay News and Salman Rushdie in the 1970s and he led Keir Starmer in Privy Council cases for men facing the death penalty. He acted for Michael Foot when he sued Rupert Murdoch personally for libel, winning a six-figure sum in settlement and has, more recently, succeeded in his defence of Lula in a UN Court, securing his release from prison and eventual presidency of Brazil. He served as a Recorder in London and as a UN appeal judge, President of its war crimes court in Sierra Leone. He has written a number of books on international law and on British history.

Mr Robertson was the lone silk when Doughty Street Chambers was established in 1990. It now has 50 and with 100 junior barristers all specialising in human rights law. After three of his members became government ministers, he joked that “Doughty Street has become Labour’s equivalent of Eton for the Tory Cabinet”.

Find out more about the Bar Council's Justice needs juries campaign

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