The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Source: I was a judge for two decades. Plans to scrap jury trials are extremely disturbing

The worst legal reform of my lifetime to date was the abolition of double jeopardy. We can largely thank the family of Stephen Lawrence for that. The Crown Prosecution Service believed they could not secure a conviction of that unfortunate young man’s suspected murderers because there was insufficient evidence. His family brought a private prosecution, which led to the acquittal the professionals had predicted.

When new DNA evidence emerged, the family campaigned for (and got) the abolition of the ancient right. To hell with all those it might have protected in future as it had for centuries. They demanded the law be changed so their stupid mistake could be corrected – and of course they got their way. The state – with all its resources – can try again if it doesn’t get you the first time.

The second worst reform was the one that brought me into blogging – the sickening Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. Since replaced by The Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011, it allowed suspects to be locked up without even being told the charges against them. As I commented in “The Opening Shot” (my first post on this blog)

The fact is than an individual in Britain can now have his or her liberty restricted indefinitely without trial – indeed without charge. If you subscribe to the old-fashioned notion of “innocent until proven guilty” this means Britain is now systematically locking up innocent people.

The conversion of the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords into the ludicrous “Supreme Court” was another legal disaster. The Supreme Court is simply our highest court of appeal. It’s not “supreme” like its namesake in the US. SCOTUS, for example, could and would overrule any attempt by mere legislators to abolish double jeopardy, which is protected by the supreme document of the republic – its constitution.

As we all learned during COVID, precisely nothing is protected by our constitution. Its mysterious “unwritten” contents can be summed up in three words – “Parliament is sovereign.” So, a bunch of elected mediocrities in a pandemic panic could have ordered the ritual sacrifice of all the redheaded virgins of the realm to appease the virus and our “supreme” court could do nowt.

These were more than enough indignities for someone proud of the history of the English Common Law to endure in one lifetime, I thought. However, it seems I have lived too long. That paragon of DEI-adjusted intellectuals, David Lammy, has decided to top them all. He proposes severely to limit the operations of the last institution in our nation in which I have any faith – the jury.

There’s much mystical jiggery-pokery about their appointment, but ultimately judges are public employees. These days they are even “trained” as such. One immigration judge of my acquaintance took early retirement because the benches had been stuffed with open borders enthusiasts. Labour’s plan to “rub the noses of the Right in diversity” was in full flow. Subjected to constant DEI indoctrination on the subject and troubled by conscience at being expected to disregard the actual law, my acquaintance just quit.

Juries don’t sit on immigration cases. alas. So the activist judges Labour introduced were able to produce different outcomes to the courts of other nations. Even in cases governed by essentially the same international treaties.

For example German courts consistently grant asylum to zero applicants from Albania – a safe country from which there is no good reason to seek asylum. Yet, until government policy (not the law or the treaties, just policy) changed last year UK immigration courts were granting 64% of such applications! The Albanian gangs running the drugs trade in London found no difficulty in bringing in new staff.

Anyone with any respect for law or justice really had no other choice than the one my acquaintance sadly made.

Now if Lammy gets his way, government selection and training of judges will influence most criminal cases in similar ways. Policy directives will also have the same sort of catastrophic influence they’ve had in immigration cases. I don’t think I am too cynical in suspecting that that is precisely his goal. I have no doubt that cases such as this are the ones from which he’d like to see a different outcome.

Trial by jury delivered a better chance of justice to ordinary people in Britain before there was a Parliament at all. I would rather live under an absolute monarchy with trial by jury than in a democracy without it. If it is abolished, an outspoken political opponent of the British ruling class will face lower chances of avoiding prison. I think that’s what Lammy wants. God knows, he’s never shown any interest in efficiency in public service before. The mere fact that he cites such a reason in this case is cause enough to doubt!