In March, at the second reading of the relevant provisions to abolish the right of a defendant to trial by jury in complex fraud trials, the Government was yet again defeated. The debate, which became somewhat ill-tempered on the part of the Government, was a good example of how the House of Lords, in representing the people in all their guises, came forward with cogent arguments as to why these provisions should not be introduced.
The proposal was that jury trial should be replaced in ‘appropriate’ cases with trial by judge alone, who would read the papers rather than have the evidence presented to him orally by counsel. The innovation had been suggested in a different guise by Lord Justice Auld’s independent review of the criminal courts, in which he stated that “two of the most compelling factors in favour of reform [were] the burdensome length and increasing speciality and complexity of these cases, with which jurors largely or wholly strangers to the subject matter are expected to cope. Both put justice at risk”. He had suggested that there be a panel consisting of a judge and two professional lay assessors who were experts in the field.
