Abtisam Mohamed

In my previous work as a solicitor, I represented women who had suffered terrible violence, and people who had been pushed to the margins of society. I have seen at first hand how fragile access to justice can be, and how years of under-investment have taken a wrecking ball to our justice system. Change is clearly needed, but the reforms before us, removing the right of defendants to elect trial by jury, do not appear to be a proportionate answer to that problem. The evidence does not support the claim that the reforms will deliver the benefits suggested, with projections suggesting that the impact on the backlog may at best be modest. That raises an obvious question: if the contribution that these measures will make to reducing the backlog is uncertain, why are we being asked to make such a profound and permanent change to one of the central safeguards in our criminal justice system? Members have spoken about a range of offences, from theft to drug-related crimes, but when people are taken to court over action to advance causes in which they believe—in the past it was the suffragettes; today it is the climate activists and Palestinian protesters—it is ordinary people, their peers, who recognise the moral imperative behind their actions to prevent greater harm. The freedoms that this system protects are not abstract. They exist precisely to safeguard individuals against the power of the state when they stand accused of a criminal offence, and that is why we should be cautious before curtailing them. There is also a serious question about the impact that these reforms may have on black and ethnic minority defendants. The Justice Secretary’s own review, published in 2017, highlighted deep disparities and a troubling lack of trust in parts of our criminal justice system. One of his key messages was that fairness must not only exist, but must be seen to exist. Juries who are drawn from our communities play an important role in public confidence. Reducing access to jury trial could risk further eroding trust among certain communities who already feel disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system. It is therefore essential that if these reforms proceed, their impact on black and ethnic minority defendants is specifically examined, transparently and rigorously. None of this is to deny the seriousness of the backlog crisis. The courts must function efficiently, and the victims should not have to wait years for justice. However, if the purpose of these reforms is to address the backlog, I suggest that we should understand why they are being introduced as a permanent alteration to our justice system, rather than a time-limited measure.