Labour are at it again. Whilst championing the rights of certain demographics, they are quietly eroding the rights of the majority.
Back in the Nineties, the Blair government removed double jeopardy, the rule that the State could only prosecute you for a crime once. It forced the CPS to make sure the case was airtight against a defendant. But the ineptitude of the Police in gathering irrefutable evidence forced the Government to end the one-shot deal of double jeopardy, so that if necessary, the Police could come back and prosecute you again for the same crime. The rule was there had to be new evidence, but several cases, the definition of new evidence has been pushed and pushed.
In fact in some cases, there really is no new evidence and it's just the same evidence presented in a different way. But each time the defendant's wallet is challenged (if you can afford to successfully defend yourself). Many cases running until the defendant's resources have run out and they cannot afford a successful defence.
Not the "beyond all reasonable doubt" standard we used to expect.
Talking of evidence, the standard of evidence itself has deteriorated. We now have successful prosecutions based on circumstantial evidence. Based on nothing more than statistical data, Nurse Lucy Letby was jailed for life for the murder of babies under her care.
Again, far and away from "beyond all reasonable doubt".
Statistics can be manipulated to say anything.
In the Letby case there was no hard evidence. Just that she had been on shift when these babies died. No smoking gun, no vial of poison found in her pocket, no video of her hanging over a baby administering a lethal injection. Just statistics, that in all probability, she murdered the kids. Probability, or the probable, is not the actual. Far from the standard of beyond reasonable doubt.
Blair's Labour government then removed the ability to receive legal aid, removing the ability of a huge swathe of "normal" people to defend themselves. Instead, Blair brought in the "No Win, no Fee" system, where the lawyers could argue in court to recoup costs. But of course convincing the lawyers to take on a case in the first place is a mission. After all, the no win no fee system is essentially an insurance type system.
If there is a good chance of winning, the lawyers will accept the case. If there is a 50/50 chance of winning, then unfortunately no capable defence for you. In actuality, if the odds of winning the case are lower than 60/40, then kiss your freedom goodbye.
No Win, No Fee works when you are most evidently innocent. It doesn't work when the case gets murky, nuanced and ambiguous.
Against all of this manipulation of the legal system, was the bastion of jury trials. Even if you couldn't get a proper defence team, even if the odds were stacked against you, if the evidence was ambiguous, if you could convince enough of your peers that you were innocent, or that the case was unreasonable, or malicious, the jury could find you not guilty.
There have been cases where the media have placed a defendant banged to rights, where it seems impossible to win, but the jury have seen something in the evidence that just doesn't sit right, or maybe they are not convinced the prosecution have made their case "beyond all reasonable doubt".
Whatever, the jury have acquitted the defendant, against all odds.
However, this new Labour government are trying to remove that last bastion of common law, of Magna Carta: the right to a trial by a jury of their peers.
Blair's labour already changed things up, where most small cases were held before a judge only. But there was the option for jury trial for smaller cases in some instances.
Starmer's Labour wants to eradicate jury trials altogether for everything except the most heinous cases.
I just wonder what cases would be exempt from Jury trial? Would gang rape of white girls buy Pakistani men be only seen by a judge?
We've already seen with the Twitter post cases that judges are accepting their role in the state machinery with zealous glee. Sending people to prison for years, for an offensive tweet. Something where I'm sure a jury would rightly acquit a person.
But this is a step too far. The state becomes judge, jury and executioner. The state takes on the case and prosecutes, the judge is appointed employed and paid by the state, and the judge defines the sentence.
The problem being that the judges are political appointees, they are activists, and not impartial. They are beholden to the state for their living. It leads to impropriety, or at the very least, the impression of impropriety in the legal system.
Otherwise I can see a situation where judges become the target of criminals. Either to blackmail, to entice or worse, to eliminate. It brings in the spectre of revenge. A judge can be seen as a target for retribution, whereas if you are convicted by your peers, it's hard for a single person to become a target.
The process has done for you, not the person. Elimination the option of jury trials just buts judges at more risk. It puts defendants at more risk of unsafe prosecutions and puts the legal and judicial system at risk of being put into disrepute.
The eradication of jury trials must be prevented, at all costs.