6 ms·

UK intends to scrap jury trials for majority of court cases

35 points by cbeach 11mo ago

dmitrygr 11mo ago
On one hand, Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs are clear on why jury trials work poorly in multicultural societies. On the other hand, UK judges do not exactly have the best reputation recently, especially on matters of ... criticizing the UK. So ... yeah ... no good options here
- graemep 11mo ago
  The UK is a very different society from Singapore. Are his objections to jury trials correct in the first place? If they are, then do they apply to the UK? I find it very hard to imagine why multiculturalism should be a problem so can you explain what he thinks they work poorly/. the good option is to keep trial by jury.
  - sgt101 11mo ago
    Unfortunately the system has basically been collapsed by industrial scale theft and fraud, and the impact of covid...
- sgt101 11mo ago
  What matters of criticizing the UK? Let's have the specifics to discuss?
- Molitor5901 11mo ago
  I found the recent Banksy work to be very .. illuminating. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/new-banksy-mural-londons-high-court-shows-judge-striking-protester-2025-09-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/new-banksy-mural-londons-hi...
antihero 11mo ago
GB News is a terrible website, here's a Guardian link: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov/25/moj-considering-extreme-proposal-to-scrap-jury-trials-for-all-but-most-serious-cases https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov/25/moj-considering-... who have their issues but are a far stretch from that rightwing rag.
- cbeach 11mo ago
  If political tribalism could be summed up with a single HN comment...
piperswe 11mo ago
This site obnoxiously tries to instantly give me an "anonymised.io" pop-up, which Fennec thankfully decides to ask me whether I want to visit. Apparently they're some sort of AI-powered marketing thing, whatever that means? Surprisingly wasn't instantly blocked by uBlock Origin.
bluescrn 11mo ago
For those who don't like the source, also reported here by the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy7vdvrnnvzo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy7vdvrnnvzo
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- cbeach 11mo ago
  The BBC is currently embroiled in an election interference scandal after it doctored a video of the President to fit the BBC's chosen political narrative. And it turns out this was just one of a series of political interventions made by the BBC. This comes after a string of child sexual abuse scandals and cover-ups perpetrated by senior members of the BBC. The BBC is an alternative news source we'd do well to avoid
  - vablings 11mo ago
    Hardly an election interference of a fairly crap panorama special that wasn't even available to watch in the USA. We can all fairly easily agree GBNEWS is the bottom of the barrel
  - lovich 11mo ago
    I’m sorry that you are upset that the BBC edit showed the president calling for violence in a summarized form that is apparently extremely different from his long form call for violence. This whole scandal is straight up 1984 “don’t believe your lying eyes” level bullshit
    - aydyn 11mo ago
      They literally changed the meaning of his words. Dont be partisan.
      - lovich 11mo ago
        He called for violence at the capital. How was the meaning of his words changed?
ccppurcell 11mo ago
GB news!? More sober sources describe it as "considering scrapping" rather than "intends to scrap".
a24j 11mo ago
Wait what?
TheOtherHobbes 11mo ago
Flagged for the source, which is not reliable.
- cbeach 11mo ago
  Unreliable according to whom? Those who find GB News stories politically inconvenient maybe?
  - jamesbelchamber 11mo ago
    Wikipedia considers them to be generally unreliable.
    - cbeach 11mo ago
      Unfortunately it's well known that Wikipedia is asymmetric in its treatment of publications on the left and right of the political spectrum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia Co-creator of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, said the Left has taken over Wikipedia and stripped it of neutrality: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/16/wikipedia-dominated-left-wing-establishment-version-truth-co/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/16/wikipedia-...
      - jamesbelchamber 11mo ago
        Why link a Wikipedia article that undermines your assertion that Wikipedia is biased?
poplarsol 11mo ago
The UK is best understood as a "managed democracy" where there are nominally elections, but the government decides who will constitute its voting population, what they are allowed to say, and now whether they will be allowed to acquit people the government decides it would prefer to punish.
- sgt101 11mo ago
  Nonsense. - voting population? What are you on about? It's everyone older than 18. - you are not allowed to say "let's go and kill xxxyyy" or "burn hotel xxxyyy" but more or less you can say anything else. You might get sued if you say "Kier Starmer is an XXXYYY" but possibly not. - this is using a system such as the one that operates in many countries - like France. But note: Germany ditched jury trials in 1924...
  - hackeraccount 11mo ago
    I've seen a couple of stories - like this one - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15302729/Assault-victim-convicted-homophobic-hate-crime.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15302729/Assault-vi... - that make me think there's a very liberal interpenetration of "hate crime", as in there doesn't need to be an underlying crime but speech alone if offensive enough is criminal.
  - gizajob 11mo ago
    16 year olds have just been given the vote by the Labour government in an attempt to shore up their support because they’re going to lose the next election. Lowering the power of my vote as an adult taxpayer by enfranchising teenagers who get their political nous from TikTok is pretty disgusting.
  - modo_mario 11mo ago
    - voting population? What are you on about? It's everyone older than 18. It'll likely be 16. And I believe bringing in more population that is a lot more likely to vote for your is also part of that.
- Molitor5901 11mo ago
reify 11mo ago
[flagged]
- hackeraccount 11mo ago
  "NHS, housing, water, gas, electricy" aren't a core part of the government. Justice is.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
rich_sasha 11mo ago
I always found the idea of jury trials terrifying. We make legal education very hard, very thorough, we teach prospective lawyers about subtle nuances of law, guilt, evidence, bias, epistemology even. We make them do mootings. Then we say lawyers are the very people who cannot sit in juries, and instead random people are to judge. Actually worse than random - people who have better things to do try to get out of it, or are resentful that they couldn't. It's a bit like having highly educated doctors explain symptoms, possible diseases, as well as a crash course in biology, immunology and statistics to a panel of randos, who then vote on the best treatment for the patient. Its only slightly worse than judges and prosecutors under reelection pressure though...
- tzs 11mo ago
  I don't know about the UK, but in the US lawyers can be jurors. The main point of a jury from the "arrive at the legally correct solution to the issue before the court" point of view is to settle questions that are questions of fact rather than questions of law. Generally in a legal dispute you have two parties who disagree over the underlying facts. For example I say your drone broke my window and I want you to pay for a new window. You say your drone was not flying at the time my window broke. Whether or not your drone broke my windows is a question of fact, not a question of law. Once it is decided whether or not your drone broke me window, then applying the law is straightforward. The difficulty is determining whether or not your drone broke my window. Once the jury has decided on all the questions of fact they have to apply the law tp them, but for that the court will have given them instructions. Generally that is in the form of a form they can fill out that's basically a decision tree. They just have to fill in what they decided are the facts, follow the branches, and they end up with the correct legal result for those facts.
  - rich_sasha 11mo ago
    Sure. But "fact" in a court of law means "facts subject to a legally-sanctioned epistemology". Every now and then you read about a judge instructing the jury to disregard some evidence, because it turns out to be inadmissible. Are random people really capable of doing this? And, likewise, leaving their biases at the courtroom doorstep? I have my doubts. And yes, I believe trained lawyers are excluded from jury duty in the UK. But even if not, the average juror will not have had any training in discerning bias, weighing evidence, statistics etc.
a24j 11mo ago
What's the demographics of the people who will replace juries? How does the fate of Underrepresented minorities fare in light of this?
mikelward 11mo ago
In the US about 94% of cases don't go to a trial. Defendants are strongly incentivised to accept a plea deal even if they are not guilty, because the cost of a trial and the risk of a guilty verdict are too high. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargaining_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargaining_in_the_United_...

35 points by cbeach 11mo ago

On one hand, Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs are clear on why jury trials work poorly in multicultural societies. On the other hand, UK judges do not exactly have the best reputation recently, especially on matters of ... criticizing the UK. So ... yeah ... no good options here

graemep 11mo ago
The UK is a very different society from Singapore. Are his objections to jury trials correct in the first place? If they are, then do they apply to the UK? I find it very hard to imagine why multiculturalism should be a problem so can you explain what he thinks they work poorly/. the good option is to keep trial by jury.
- sgt101 11mo ago
  Unfortunately the system has basically been collapsed by industrial scale theft and fraud, and the impact of covid...
sgt101 11mo ago
What matters of criticizing the UK? Let's have the specifics to discuss?
Molitor5901 11mo ago
I found the recent Banksy work to be very .. illuminating. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/new-banksy-mural-londons-high-court-shows-judge-striking-protester-2025-09-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/new-banksy-mural-londons-hi...

antihero 11mo ago

GB News is a terrible website, here's a Guardian link: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov/25/moj-considering-extreme-proposal-to-scrap-jury-trials-for-all-but-most-serious-cases https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov/25/moj-considering-... who have their issues but are a far stretch from that rightwing rag.

cbeach 11mo ago
If political tribalism could be summed up with a single HN comment...

piperswe 11mo ago

This site obnoxiously tries to instantly give me an "anonymised.io" pop-up, which Fennec thankfully decides to ask me whether I want to visit. Apparently they're some sort of AI-powered marketing thing, whatever that means? Surprisingly wasn't instantly blocked by uBlock Origin.

bluescrn 11mo ago

For those who don't like the source, also reported here by the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy7vdvrnnvzo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy7vdvrnnvzo

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
cbeach 11mo ago
The BBC is currently embroiled in an election interference scandal after it doctored a video of the President to fit the BBC's chosen political narrative. And it turns out this was just one of a series of political interventions made by the BBC. This comes after a string of child sexual abuse scandals and cover-ups perpetrated by senior members of the BBC. The BBC is an alternative news source we'd do well to avoid
- vablings 11mo ago
  Hardly an election interference of a fairly crap panorama special that wasn't even available to watch in the USA. We can all fairly easily agree GBNEWS is the bottom of the barrel
- lovich 11mo ago
  I’m sorry that you are upset that the BBC edit showed the president calling for violence in a summarized form that is apparently extremely different from his long form call for violence. This whole scandal is straight up 1984 “don’t believe your lying eyes” level bullshit
  - aydyn 11mo ago
    They literally changed the meaning of his words. Dont be partisan.
    - lovich 11mo ago
      He called for violence at the capital. How was the meaning of his words changed?

ccppurcell 11mo ago

GB news!? More sober sources describe it as "considering scrapping" rather than "intends to scrap".

a24j 11mo ago

Wait what?

TheOtherHobbes 11mo ago

Flagged for the source, which is not reliable.

cbeach 11mo ago
Unreliable according to whom? Those who find GB News stories politically inconvenient maybe?
- jamesbelchamber 11mo ago
  Wikipedia considers them to be generally unreliable.
  - cbeach 11mo ago
    Unfortunately it's well known that Wikipedia is asymmetric in its treatment of publications on the left and right of the political spectrum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia Co-creator of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, said the Left has taken over Wikipedia and stripped it of neutrality: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/16/wikipedia-dominated-left-wing-establishment-version-truth-co/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/16/wikipedia-...
    - jamesbelchamber 11mo ago
      Why link a Wikipedia article that undermines your assertion that Wikipedia is biased?

poplarsol 11mo ago

The UK is best understood as a "managed democracy" where there are nominally elections, but the government decides who will constitute its voting population, what they are allowed to say, and now whether they will be allowed to acquit people the government decides it would prefer to punish.

sgt101 11mo ago
Nonsense. - voting population? What are you on about? It's everyone older than 18. - you are not allowed to say "let's go and kill xxxyyy" or "burn hotel xxxyyy" but more or less you can say anything else. You might get sued if you say "Kier Starmer is an XXXYYY" but possibly not. - this is using a system such as the one that operates in many countries - like France. But note: Germany ditched jury trials in 1924...
- hackeraccount 11mo ago
  I've seen a couple of stories - like this one - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15302729/Assault-victim-convicted-homophobic-hate-crime.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15302729/Assault-vi... - that make me think there's a very liberal interpenetration of "hate crime", as in there doesn't need to be an underlying crime but speech alone if offensive enough is criminal.
- gizajob 11mo ago
  16 year olds have just been given the vote by the Labour government in an attempt to shore up their support because they’re going to lose the next election. Lowering the power of my vote as an adult taxpayer by enfranchising teenagers who get their political nous from TikTok is pretty disgusting.
- modo_mario 11mo ago
  - voting population? What are you on about? It's everyone older than 18. It'll likely be 16. And I believe bringing in more population that is a lot more likely to vote for your is also part of that.
Molitor5901 11mo ago

reify 11mo ago

[flagged]

hackeraccount 11mo ago
"NHS, housing, water, gas, electricy" aren't a core part of the government. Justice is.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]

rich_sasha 11mo ago

I always found the idea of jury trials terrifying. We make legal education very hard, very thorough, we teach prospective lawyers about subtle nuances of law, guilt, evidence, bias, epistemology even. We make them do mootings. Then we say lawyers are the very people who cannot sit in juries, and instead random people are to judge. Actually worse than random - people who have better things to do try to get out of it, or are resentful that they couldn't. It's a bit like having highly educated doctors explain symptoms, possible diseases, as well as a crash course in biology, immunology and statistics to a panel of randos, who then vote on the best treatment for the patient. Its only slightly worse than judges and prosecutors under reelection pressure though...

tzs 11mo ago
I don't know about the UK, but in the US lawyers can be jurors. The main point of a jury from the "arrive at the legally correct solution to the issue before the court" point of view is to settle questions that are questions of fact rather than questions of law. Generally in a legal dispute you have two parties who disagree over the underlying facts. For example I say your drone broke my window and I want you to pay for a new window. You say your drone was not flying at the time my window broke. Whether or not your drone broke my windows is a question of fact, not a question of law. Once it is decided whether or not your drone broke me window, then applying the law is straightforward. The difficulty is determining whether or not your drone broke my window. Once the jury has decided on all the questions of fact they have to apply the law tp them, but for that the court will have given them instructions. Generally that is in the form of a form they can fill out that's basically a decision tree. They just have to fill in what they decided are the facts, follow the branches, and they end up with the correct legal result for those facts.
- rich_sasha 11mo ago
  Sure. But "fact" in a court of law means "facts subject to a legally-sanctioned epistemology". Every now and then you read about a judge instructing the jury to disregard some evidence, because it turns out to be inadmissible. Are random people really capable of doing this? And, likewise, leaving their biases at the courtroom doorstep? I have my doubts. And yes, I believe trained lawyers are excluded from jury duty in the UK. But even if not, the average juror will not have had any training in discerning bias, weighing evidence, statistics etc.

a24j 11mo ago

What's the demographics of the people who will replace juries? How does the fate of Underrepresented minorities fare in light of this?

mikelward 11mo ago

In the US about 94% of cases don't go to a trial. Defendants are strongly incentivised to accept a plea deal even if they are not guilty, because the cost of a trial and the risk of a guilty verdict are too high. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargaining_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargaining_in_the_United_...