Labour’s attack on jury trials threatens democracy

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• How shifting cases off juries reduces ordinary people’s role
• Jury trials as a check on state power and a civic practice
• Lessons from ancient democracy: why random selection mattered
  • What Athens got right about citizen juries
• How the English jury evolved into a modern democratic safeguard
• Contradictions in current political rhetoric about citizen involvement
• Practical impacts: what the proposed change would mean
• Why the debate over juries is fundamentally about democracy
• About the author

Last month I sat in the audience at an event called In Defence of Trial by Jury, where lawyers, academics and campaigners pushed back against proposals from UK justice secretary David Lammy to shift more Crown Court cases away from juries. The conversation felt urgent: it wasn’t merely about court logistics, but about who gets to decide the most serious questions in our public life.

Speakers challenged the notion that juries are the primary cause of the Crown Court backlog — currently close to 78,000 cases — and instead pointed to chronic underfunding, procedural complexity and an increasing volume of marginal claims. But beyond efficiency, the debate opened up a deeper tension over civil liberties and democratic participation that deserves closer scrutiny.

How shifting cases off juries reduces ordinary people’s role

At stake in Lammy’s proposal is not only the speed of the criminal justice system but the amount of direct public involvement in verdicts. When judges replace juries, decision-making is concentrated in a professional legal class rather than distributed among randomly selected citizens. That change alters the relationship between the state and the governed.

• Fewer juries means fewer citizens deciding guilt or innocence, reducing opportunities for everyday people to engage with the law beyond voting or occasional public meetings.
• Decisions shift from a cross-section of the public to a narrower group of career jurists and legal experts, who may bring different priorities and assumptions.
• Public confidence in the justice system can be affected when ordinary voices are sidelined, especially in controversial or politically sensitive cases.

Jury trials as a check on state power and a civic practice

Defenders of juries often emphasize civil liberties: the idea that a defendant should be judged by peers rather than by the state’s appointed officials. This is vital when criminal statutes are broad or politically charged. Recent prosecutions for online speech about immigration illustrate the point — juries sometimes act as a restraint on overreach.

Still, the importance of juries goes beyond protecting the accused from coercion. They are a rare, enduring mechanism for civic participation in institutions that are otherwise dominated by professionals and elites. Removing juries reduces the channels through which citizens practice deliberation and exercise collective judgment.

Lessons from ancient democracy: why random selection mattered

What Athens got right about citizen juries

Random selection of jurors is not a novelty. In classical Athens, juries were massive bodies drawn by lot from the citizenry and entrusted with duties that included both verdict and sentence. While exclusionary by modern standards — excluding women, slaves and resident foreigners — Athenian practice reflected a clear democratic principle: ordinary citizens, acting collectively, would carry out the most consequential decisions of the state.

That arrangement had flaws — Socrates’ conviction in 399 BC remains a grave example — but the underlying logic was straightforward: the people who made the laws should have a direct role in enforcing them. Those juries were part of a broader system that randomized service in governance, from the Council of 500 to civic boards, all aimed at preventing concentrated power and encouraging civic engagement.

How the English jury evolved into a modern democratic safeguard

Our jury system didn’t arrive fully formed from ancient Greece. Medieval and early modern England developed a different model, influenced by Norman institutions and local customs. Initially, jurors were often local men selected by sheriffs who might know the case; over centuries, the idea of impartiality strengthened, and statutes standardized selection and eligibility.

• Selection moved from local acquaintance toward random, representative pools.
• Expectations changed: jurors were increasingly seen as neutral fact-finders rather than local adjudicators.
• The modern jury became one of the few places where ordinary people still exercised direct authority over the legal consequences of public policy.

That continuity matters. While the form has changed, the function — embedding citizen judgment within the justice system — remains a unique democratic practice, especially compared with many continental systems that rarely use juries.

Contradictions in current political rhetoric about citizen involvement

Within the Labour movement there are mixed signals about participation. Senior figures have publicly supported citizens’ assemblies — bodies of randomly selected people who deliberate on public policy — as a way to reconnect politics to ordinary lives. Yet proposals to shrink jury trials would diminish another long-standing form of random selection that places citizens at the center of consequential decisions.

If the goal is genuinely to expand meaningful civic engagement, the logic points toward preserving or even strengthening juries rather than curtailing them. Reducing jury trials while praising citizens’ assemblies raises an awkward question: why encourage citizen deliberation in some arenas but curtail it in the courts?

Practical impacts: what the proposed change would mean

Officials defending the reforms say the adjustments are modest — perhaps reducing the share of Crown Court cases tried by jury from roughly 30% to just over 20%. But modest changes can have a disproportionate effect on public participation and trust. A smaller percentage of jury trials translates directly into thousands fewer citizens serving on juries each year, diminishing the civic habit of participation.

1. Fewer citizens called for jury duty annually;
2. Reduced public exposure to criminal procedure and legal reasoning;
3. Greater discretion for judges in high-profile or politically charged cases.

These are not abstract outcomes. Consider a recent high-profile case in which an individual charged over contentious online speech was acquitted by a jury in less than twenty minutes. The speed and result sparked discussion about whether a bench trial would have produced the same outcome. Where state power is expanding over speech or protest, ordinary jurors can serve as an important brake on prosecutorial or legislative overreach.

Why the debate over juries is fundamentally about democracy

Opponents of Lammy’s plan are often cast as defenders of legalism or specific liberties, but there’s a democratic argument at the heart of their case. Juries are among the last surviving arenas where citizens, randomly chosen, deliberate together and decide outcomes with serious public consequences. Curtailing that practice narrows the channels for democratic participation to a handful of electoral and institutional mechanisms that already concentrate influence.

Preserving jury trials is not merely nostalgia for a quaint custom; it’s an argument for distributed civic responsibility. As governments and bureaucracies become more complex and professionalized, institutions that let ordinary people take part in governance — even in limited ways — acquire greater value.

About the author

James Kierstead taught Classics at university level and now works as an adjunct fellow at a public policy think tank. His research and writing focus on the intersection of legal history, civic institutions and democratic practice.

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