Blairite veteran and former Justice Secretary Charlie Falconer has reversed his position on whether or not to scrap jury trials. Just so happens to occur when Labour wants to do it…
Falconer placed a hefty piece in the Telegraph over the weekend concluding that the ancient right to a jury trial should indeed be scrapped:
“Historically, juries developed as a safeguard against politically influenced judges – particularly in eras such as the 17th century, when figures such as Judge Jeffreys in the Bloody Assizes demonstrated the dangers of executive control of the judiciary.
But that rationale no longer maps neatly on to our modern constitutional arrangements.
Judicial independence has been transformed, while the jury system itself has failed to guard against serious miscarriages of justice: in the Birmingham Six and Maguire Seven cases, and many other miscarriages juries convicted. It was most certainly not the juries’ fault. But they were no safeguard.”
Not that he is consistent. Back in 2020, at around the time David Lammy was campaigning to protect jury trials, Falconer tweeted the following:
“Strongly disagree with idea of non jury trials. Those convicted will feel system not fair to them, victims will feel no justice where defendant acquitted. Sir Richard Henriques says Diplock courts worked. They undermined justice hugely.”
Falconer is no stranger to curiosities in the legal system. Co-conspirators may remember he – as Lord Chancellor in 2003 – invoked Section 17A of the 1988 Coroners Act to block a coroner’s inquest into the death of government weapons expert David Kelly. This was in favour of a non-statutory public inquiry as part of which witnesses were not required to speak under oath – many were not called at all. As Miles Goslett’s book into the death of David Kelly, An Inconvenient Death, explains
“Section 17A of the 1988 Coroners Act was created in order to simplify the task and cut the expense of dealing with multiple deaths as a result of a tragedy such as a ferry disaster or a motorway pile-up. At the time of Dr Kelly’s death it had only ever been used twice: first, in 2000, when investigating the thirty-one deaths caused by the Ladbroke Grove rail crash; then in 2001 to inquire into the 311 murders committed by Dr Harold Shipman.”
Falconer has taken up a campaigning role on issues including the assisted suicide bill. Left-wing and in political trouble? Call up a Blairite…
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