UK Law Articles
These articles are reproduced from old newspapers. Whether you are looking for old articles about the Lord Chancellor's Department, or trying to find stories on solicitors, judges or courts, the law teacher article database is here to help you. You will find these articles useful for writing your law essays, law dissertations and law coursework.
Independent
29 September 2000
Coalition of peers defeat Bill to cut defendants' right to trial by jury
The House of Lords threw out Jack
Straw's Bill to curb a defendant's right to trial by jury last night.
Rebel Labour peers and Liberal Democrats backed a Conservative
move wrecking the Bill, defeating it by 184 votes to 88. The Home Office
admitted after the vote that the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial No 2) Bill was
now dead but said the Government would introduce new legislation.
Last night marked the second time the Lords had rejected the
Bill, which is fiercely opposed by civil liberties campaigners because it would
end the right of about 18,000 defendants a year in England and Wales to elect
trial by jury. After the first defeat Mr Straw, the Home Secretary, introduced a
new Bill, which went through the Commons in the summer and last night the
Attorney General, Lord Williams of Mostyn, told peers it should be passed to cut
delays and save money.
The Liberal Democrat Lord Thomas of Gresford, a Crown Court
recorder and deputy High Court judge, told the Lords not one Labour backbencher
had spoken in support of the Bill, which passed the Commons only when debate was
cut short.
"When this House rejects the Bill again, Mr Straw will
himself awake and realise the full implications on the ancient liberties and
freedoms on the people of England and Wales that his measure represents,"
he said.
A Home Office spokeswoman said later that the Government
remained committed to the reform. "The courts are best qualified to reach a
view on what is the right venue for trial, not the defendant. We will not be
deterred by the opposition of the House of Lords. We have already introduced
this Bill twice this session and we will bring forward further legislation when
parliamentary time allows. The Bill represents a modest but important
modernisation of the criminal justice system."
The Leader of the Opposition peers, Lord Strathclyde, said:
"This was an utterly decisive verdict. The House of Lords has again refused
to accept the erosion of what is a fundamental English liberty. Jack Straw must
make clear tomorrow that he will not proceed with this proposal."
The defeat was the first in a series of expected clashes
between the Government and the Lords, which still has to pass controversial
legislation introducing the right to roam, RUC reform and part-privatisation of
National Air Traffic Services.
