Sailesh Mehta interviewed by Matthew Wright on LBC Radio

Sailesh Mehta was interviewed and asked for opinion by LBC Radio’s Matthew Wright on his breakfast show on Sunday 6th July about the Justice Secretary’s proposal to take away the right to “Trial by Jury” in some fraud and sex cases.

Trial by jury traces its constitutional origins back to the Magna Carta (1215)  which states: “”no free man shall be seized, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or ruined in any way, nor in any way proceeded against, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land.”  In 1628 Sir Edward Coke had described trial by jury as the “glory of the English law” and Lord Devlin stated that “the Jury is the lamp that shows that freedom lives”.

Sailesh said that there should be a compelling reason to limit or reduce this right.  He pointed out that the Bar was opposed to the proposed changes.  He suggested that the only reason for the proposals was to save costs –  but there was no research study that proved that trials would be shorter without a Jury, or how much money and Court time would be saved by the proposals.  Nor was there any research to suggest that Judge-only trials would better protect the rights of victims – anecdotal evidence suggested the opposite. All available research also suggested that fraud trials were not so complex that Juries could  not understand their complexities. He commented:

“There is a crisis in our system of justice.  There is an unprecedented back-log of Crown Court cases awaiting trial.  This is unfair to victims of crime and to defendants.  Our prison system is creaking at the seams.  The rule of law is often attacked here and internationally, the rule-based system of international law is being ignored with impunity.  All of these problems need to be urgently addressed.  Taking away cherished rights is not the solution.”