One of the foundational documents for America, is the Magna Carta, which along with the Charter of the Forest, establish an oft unheralded blessing of the rule of law. In particular in included the provision for the “lawful judgement of his peers” before a free person could be punished, and more broadly to prevent an executive authority from dominating trials and the judgement of justice.
This has been preserved, for over eight centuries in the United States, and enshrined in our Constitution via the 6th Amendment.
This had been preserved for over eight centuries in England… until now.
“Ministers have proposed to end the right to a jury trial for a vast range of criminal offences in England and Wales, as they grapple with a huge backlog of cases that is delaying hearings by more than a year in many instances.
“Under the shake-up, juries would be scrapped for all cases expected to attract a prison sentence of five years or less, with defendants barred from asking for a jury trial, as they can at present for many offences.
“Cases that can currently go before either a judge sitting alone or a jury would all be heard in a new ‘bench division’ of crown courts, with a judge sitting alone.
“Juries would also be scrapped in lengthy or complex trials such as fraud cases. However, lengthy and complex trials involving rape, murder or manslaughter, or where there was a special public interest element, would still go before a jury.
“The proposals were set out in a memo by justice secretary David Lammy, seen by the Financial Times.
“Lammy’s plans go far beyond proposals set out in July by retired High Court judge Sir Brian Leveson, who called for the end of the right to jury trial for a far more limited range of offences.”
Ironically, those pushing for this attack on the right to trial by jury cite the Manga Carta to do say by claiming the abolition of one part of the Magna Carta (jury trials) is necessary to fulfill the prohibition on the crown from the duty to not “deny, or delay right or justice to anyone”… even though those denials and delays are entirely the fault of the state in question!
Apparently “ancient right” is more of a suggestion in the modern United Kingdom.
“Sometimes, Americans are shocked to hear me include jury trials when I list fundamental rights that are being abridged in other countries. But they shouldn’t be. Certainly, the BBC’s reference to “the ancient right to a jury trial” is correct as a descriptive matter. But as a legal proposition, it is no more an enforceable ‘right’ in contemporary Britain than is this year’s top tax rate. Unlike in the United States, where the protection sits above the transient political process, the provision of juries in Britain is little more than the quotidian choice of the incumbent government. If, as seems now to be happening, the British government decides that juries are inefficient or undesirable in a particular situation — or, even, per se — it can abolish them at will.
“And it’s not just juries. Once upon a time in Britain there was also an ‘ancient right’ to free speech, an ‘ancient right’ to bear arms, and an ancient right not to be detained indefinitely without trial. Now, they are all memories. Something bad happened — a ‘hate crime,’ a mass shooting, a terrorist attack — and they were jettisoned at the first opportunity. To avoid this happening in the United States, we wrote down our Constitution. It worked.”
Just to show how bad it can get, the right to not be “twice put in jeopardy of life or limb” for the same offence, as enshrined in the 5th Amendment, which has been abolished in the U.K. where the state may appeal a tossed conviction.
While some in the United States would love to follow the example of the U.K., Americans have the Constitution to protect them.
