While many of use here are concerned about David Lammy's plan to recuse the incidence of jury trials (which has already been criticised for being unlikely to *actually* quickly rescue the backlog in courts, as intended), here is Natalie Fleet, who has direct experience of the court system (as a victim of sexual violence) arguing that actually judge-led trials may be better for the victims of crime.
theguardian.com/law/2026/jan/2…
Labour MP who was groomed asks colleagues to back judge-only trials
Exclusive: Natalie Fleet says power balance is with criminals not victims as delays make ‘hell of being raped’ worseRajeev Syal (The Guardian)
FediThing
in reply to Emeritus Prof Christopher May • • •Judge-led trials are quite common in the rest of Europe, perhaps it might help if the UK media and politicians discussed foreign examples for insights on how it actually works?
Or would the legal systems not be comparable in this way?
Also, I think Northern Ireland uses judge-based trials but that's arguably a special case due to the historical political situation.
Emeritus Prof Christopher May
in reply to FediThing • • •@FediThing
Yes, the issue of comparability is related to the differences between a civil law system (many European countries) and the common law system in the UK. The systems' role for the judge is so different as to be really not that comparable....
FediThing
in reply to Emeritus Prof Christopher May • • •