Geoffrey Robertson says proposals to reduce backlog are betrayal of party’s values and a ‘cure worse than the disease’
The founder of Keir Starmer’s barristers’ chambers has condemned the planned restriction of jury trials in England and Wales as “a betrayal of the values for which Labour purports to stand”.
Geoffrey Robertson KC, founding head of Doughty Street Chambers, where the attorney general, Richard Hermer KC, and the justice secretary, David Lammy, also had their professional homes, has written a more than 9,000-word polemic to coincide with the committee stage of the courts and tribunals bill.
In the document, published on the Bar Council’s website on Monday night, Robertson questions the principle and efficacy of seeking to reduce the court backlog by using the bill to slash the number of jury trials by about half, calling the proposals a “cure worse than the disease”.
He says: “Attacking juries must be regarded a betrayal of the values for which Labour purports to stand.
“How have they come to betray a principle that has been so important over the centuries for those who have dissented or stood for progress?
“Given its record of support for progressive causes, for free speech and peaceful political protests, the bill does seem a betrayal of Labour traditions and values. MPs who vote in favour will be on the wrong side of their party’s own history.”
He says trial by jury is a much-admired part of English heritage, trusted by the public, and has a constitutional...
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