Justice secretary reverses course on judge-only jury trials

Summarised from 2 outlets · 3 reports · Updated 4 Oct, 10:54 · Archive

The justice secretary has abandoned plans to allow judge-only trials, citing implementation difficulties.

Justice Secretary Alex Norris has abandoned the government's proposal to introduce judge-only trials, saying the legislation would have been 'complicated to implement'. The move marks a reversal of earlier plans intended to tackle the backlog of cases in the courts.

Norris insisted that scrapping the proposal would allow the government to reduce the court backlog faster than the alternative approach. However, he declined to commit to a specific target for bringing the backlog down.

How it is being reported

• Court backlogs will still fall despite jury trials U-turn, Alex Norris saysEvening Standard · 4 Oct, 11:14
• Court backlogs will still fall despite jury trials U-turn, Alex Norris saysEvening Standard · 4 Oct, 10:31
• Justice secretary admits court backlog will continue to rise after U-turn on jury trialsThe Independent · 4 Oct, 09:58

In this story: Alex Norris

This summary was written by AI from the headlines and standfirsts above, and states as fact only what at least two outlets report. How we use AI · Report a problem