Tag Archives: jury trials

The “right” to a jury trial – a Scottish perspective

By Stephen Harte | Fri 5th December 2025 - 1:18 pm

All the debate in the press on the “right” to a jury trial in England (and Wales?) has been interesting from a Scottish perspective.

In Scotland, the vast majority of criminal cases are tried in the local Sheriff Court and an accused has no right to a jury trial in the Sheriff Court.

Rather, it is the prosecutor and not the accused who decides whether there will be trial before a jury.

To explain….

In Scotland, the there are three levels of first instance criminal courts:

The Justice of the Peace Courts (minor matters with very limited sentencing powers).

The Sheriff Court – the work horse of the system where most crimes beyond the most serious are tried and which has higher limits on its sentencing power than the JP court.

The High Court of Justiciary – more serious cases including all cases of rape and murder are tried and which has unlimited sentencing powers.

There are no juries in the JP Courts and there are always juries in the High Court. In Scotland, a jury is made up of 15 people and not 12 as in England.

In the Sheriff Court, there is a jury if the matter is tried under solemn procedure and not a jury if the matter is tried under summary procedure.

The sentencing powers of the court if an accused is found guilty are alway greater under solemn procedure than summary procedure.

Posted in Op-eds | 7 Comments

Liberal Democrats must speak out for jury trials

By Antony Hook | Tue 11th January 2022 - 8:49 am

When anyone attacks the jury system, Liberal Democrats should be vocal and prominent in defending it.

Just a few days into 2022 we saw, after the acquittal of the Colston 4, a sustained attack from Conservative voices. Their target was not just the verdict but on the jury system generally.
Juries are a precious safeguard of freedom. Our party has said so many times in our policy papers. The fight to establish juries as the fundamental deciders of whether a defendant is guilty or not was hard won. It was a struggle over centuries. It is a story entwined with the anti-establishment roots of the Liberal Democrats.

Last week’s mudslinging at the “the lamp by which liberty shines” (as Lord Bridge once called juries) is not the first bout of Tory anti-juryism. But it is particularly disquieting, albeit foreseeable, to hear it from buddies of the present government. The words of Conservative journalists and backbenchers are often used to scout positions and for ministers to stoop down to later.

Tory ministers have a record of trying to upend constitutional safeguards for partisan interest. Attempting to prorogue parliament to prevent votes on Brexit in Autumn 2019 was perhaps the worst example. The astonishing, repeated coincidences of donations with honours or policy outcomes is another. It is easy to imagine that this dangerous government might seek to interfere with the jury system.