79 TOMORROWS TO 7TH MAY

Amidst the hurricane that once again is blowing away this government`s masquerade as a policy driven force for the benefit of the British people, especially working people, the proposal to end jury trials for those defendants who elect trial at crown court has been lost in a fog of government U turns.  Justice  secretary David Lammy has claimed that cutting jury trials could clear the 80,000 backlog within a decade. In practice this would mean that "either way" cases would remain within the magistrates courts.  He has proposed that alongside this change magistrates courts` sentencing powers would be increased to 18 months maximum custodial sentence. 

There is however a large black hole surrounding the above proposed changes; there are no, zero, zilch, statistics of how many crown court trials take place of those defendants who elect to be tried by judge and jury instead of taking their chances at the lower court. As a consequence there are no statistics of how those trials conclude.  Thus the conviction rate is a phantom that would have suited Gilbert and Sullivan or the catacombs of Paris.   All the government can offer as fact is that 68% of either way cases are sent to the crown court by magistrates  but no figure of how many defendants elected that route. It follows that this wholesale contemplated policy change has no factual foundation. 

How can such a fundamental change in the justice system be contemplated with a lack of evidence on the possible consequences?  Since the election of this government on the basis that it was not the Conservative Party there has been no coherence between aspiration and practicality of policy projects. It was only yesterday when Ministers abandoned plans to delay local elections after denying such a change in policy was in their minds just a few days ago.  

A nation`s way of treating those who break the law is a fundamental insight, perhaps the most fundamental insight, into how its government uses the power bestowed on it by the citizenry. Our so called collapsing justice system encapsulates all that is rotten within this former DPP who is forever telling us, that he is father of two teenagers, a toolmaker`s son, first in his family to go to university whose late brother lived in poverty and whose wife works in the NHS.  He supported the antisemite Jeremy Corbyn in the shadow cabinet and blames everyone but himself for the country`s woes.  He is here today but not gone tomorrow but perhaps in 79 tomorrows..............who knows?