David Lammy’s proposals for judge-only trials would make England and Wales an outlier

Criminal courts in England and Wales are facing such severe case backlogs that the whole system threatens to collapse. Many cases entering the crown court today will not reach trial until 2028 or even 2029. Others are being dropped or collapse before they ever get to trial.  

In response this justice secretary, David Lammy, has proposed limiting jury trials to accusations of rape, murder and certain ‘public interest’ cases. Instead, most defendants will be tried by a single judge, who will determine both guilt and sentence – passing sentences up to five years in prison.  

These changes go well beyond Sir Brian Leveson’s proposals in his recent independent review of the criminal courts, which were for a judge and two magistrates to hear less serious cases attracting sentences up to three years, and would mean only around 3% of defendants currently eligible for a jury trial would still be entitled to one.1 Almost 90% of defendants convicted in the crown court in the 12 months to June 2025 were given sentences of 5 years or less.  

Lammy’s proposals would make England and Wales out of step with most democracies around the world. 

Jury trials are relatively unusual – but few countries have single judges for more than minor crimes

Around 50 countries worldwide use some version of jury trials. Those sceptical of juries often highlight that most European countries don’t have jury trials for most or sometimes any crimes, including France, Germany and Spain. Nor are single judges unheard of. Even closer to home, around two thirds of cases in Scotland (which has its own legal system) are overseen by a single ‘sheriff’. These countries aren’t widely considered to have fundamentally unjust legal systems or be more prone to miscarriages of justice.  

But few of these systems allow lengthy sentences to be passed down in trials heard by a single judge. Scottish sheriff courts have a jury for more serious ‘solemn’ cases, and can impose a maximum sentence of a single year in prison for those heard by a sheriff alone. Germany has panels of professional and lay judges, Schöffen, who are appointed from the local community; they are involved in cases expected to attract a sentence over two years. ²⁷ Perron W, ‘Lay Participation in Germany’, 2001, Revue internationale de droit pénal, Issue 72(1), pp.181-195. https://doi.org/10.3917/ridp.721.0181.  French courts typically involve a panel of judges for offences attracting sentences of one to five years, with mixed judge and juror panels for the most serious offences.3 Other jurisdictions have similar approaches.

There are strong advantages to both multiple decision makers and involving the public in criminal trials

One reason single judge set-ups are unusual is straightforward: a panel is less likely to make a mistake than a single individual, both in interpreting the law and ‘findings of fact’ about what really happened. In a group, judges and juries alike must discuss the evidence, provide reasons for their views and reach a consensus or majority view. There is more chance of a single individual being swayed by bias (or even just their mood on the day) and some evidence suggests that single judges are more likely to convict defendants than either judicial panels ²⁸ Alysandratos T and Kalliris K, ‘Is one judging head the same as three? A natural experiment on individuals vs groups’, working paper, 2021, cited in Kalliris K and Alysandratos T, ‘One judge to rule them all: Single-member courts as an answer to delays in criminal trials’, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Vol 20 Issue 1, pp.233-268.  or juries. ²⁹ Kalven H and Zeisel H, ‘The American Jury’, Washington and Lee Law Review, Vol 24 (1), 1967, https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol24/iss1/18/  This would increase the risk of miscarriages of justice.

Juries and panels with lay judges are also make sure the public or community is represented in criminal trials. This provides both a check on the power of the state and represents ‘the average person’ in court decisions. Court judges are extremely unrepresentative of society as a whole: 68% are over 50, 61% are men, 89% are White and around a third went to private school. ³⁰ Ministry of Justice, ‘Diversity of the judiciary: Legal professions, new appointments and current post-holders - 2025 Statistics’, 2025, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/diversity-of-the-judiciary-2025-statistics/diversity-of-the-judiciary-legal-professions-new-appointments-and…  Fewer than 10% of new judicial appointments went to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds in 2024/25. ³¹ Ministry of Justice, ‘Diversity of the judiciary: Legal professions, new appointments and current post-holders - 2025 Statistics’, 2025, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/diversity-of-the-judiciary-2025-statistics/diversity-of-the-judiciary-legal-professions-new-appointments-and…  

At a basic level, this makes it hard for judges to understand the circumstances of many people who come before the court. It’s particularly important for cases that involve an element of community standards: what judges consider ‘reasonable’, ‘negligent’ or ‘indecent’ may well be different to the public as a whole.

Involving members of the public also boosts confidence in the system. Some 55% of the public have ‘a fair amount’ of trust in the jury system to deliver the right verdict and 8% ‘a great deal’. ³² YouGov, ‘How much, if at all, do you generally trust the jury system used in criminal trials to deliver the right verdict?’, 2024, https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2024/03/04/51f36/1  That might not sound brilliant, but compared to just 36% saying they have a fair amount of confidence in the courts and judicial system as a whole – and 17% saying they have no confidence at all – it looks much more positive. ³³ YouGov, ‘Confidence in the British judicial system’, 2025, https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/confidence-in-the-british-judicial-system

Confidence in the effectiveness and fairness of the criminal justice system has (unsurprisingly) fallen in recent years ³⁴ ONS, ‘Perception and experience of police and criminal justice system, England and Wales: year ending March 2025’, 2025, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/perceptionandexperienceofpoliceandcriminaljusticesystemenglandandwales/y…  and dramatically restricting jury trials risks exacerbating this trend.

Addressing courts’ productivity problems would be a quicker way to reduce the backlog  

Productivity in the crown court has fallen dramatically, by as much as 20% or more since 2016. Fewer hours are sat per day, because more time is wasted waiting for lawyers to arrive or defendants to be delivered from prison, or on trials that are cancelled or rescheduled on the day. Cases are repeatedly listed for trial and then delayed because there isn’t time to hear them – even though fewer trials are scheduled to be heard each day. 

Addressing these productivity problems would take time. The major drivers of poor productivity are not having enough criminal lawyers, badly maintained court buildings, shortages of court staff and poor technology, ³⁶ Rowland C, ‘Criminal courts’, Public Services Performance Tracker 2025, Institute for Government, 2025, https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/performance-tracker-2025/criminal-justice/criminal-courts  and none of these offer quick wins. But even so, improving productivity is likely to be much quicker – and much less controversial – than introducing judge-only trials, which are unlikely to be up and running before 2028 at the earliest.  

Nor has the government argued in favour of judge-only trials on their own terms; they have instead made pragmatic arguments that there is no alternative. But that is not the case. The government should instead look to maximise productivity improvements before introducing these kinds of structural reforms, if it still thinks they are justified.