Justice Secretary David Lammy, announced the measure on 3 December.
It scraps jury trials in England and Wales for crimes that carry a likely sentence of less than three years, removing the right for defendants to ask for a jury trial where a case can be dealt with by either magistrates or a new form of judge-only Crown Court.
Volunteer community magistrates, who deal with the majority of all criminal cases, will take on more work and new “swift courts” will be set up.
Lammy told MPs the new system would get cases dealt with a fifth faster than jury trials.
He added that it was necessary as current projections have Crown Court case loads reaching 100,000 by 2028.
This means that a suspect being charged with an offence today may not reach trial until 2030. Among the impacts of this are that six out of 10 victims of rape are said to be withdrawing from prosecutions because of delays.
The reforms are based on a review by former High-Court judge Sir Brian Leveson – which suggested ending jury trial for most crimes attracting sentences of up to five years and diverting offences to a new intermediate court called the Crown Court bench division.
In July of this year, Sir Brian said “fundamental” reforms were needed to “reduce the risk of total system collapse”. His proposals also included more out-of-court settlements like cautions.
There are around 1.3 million prosecutions in England and Wales every year, and 10% of those cases go before a Crown Court. Of those, three out of 10 result in trials.
Turner said that while Sir Brian was “eminent”, as a High Court judge he had not been in a criminal Crown Court for a long time.
“Speak to the men and women at the criminal bar they were there every single day of the week and they will identify the problem is not juries,” said Turner, a former criminal barrister.
Instead closed courts and late prisoner deliveries were behind the backlog, he said.
Speaking to broadcasters on Friday, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Labour ministers were “not being imaginative enough” on how to clear the backlog, arguing that courts should sit for longer hours instead.
“Scrapping jury trials is just one extra step that takes away freedoms and liberties. Judges don’t always get it right,” she added.
