New Clause 2
Fraud (Trials Without a Jury) Bill
6:15 pm
Simon Hughes (Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs & Shadow Attorney General, Constitutional Affairs; North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I rise to support the new clause and will briefly say why. At the moment, when an application is made, the law as drafted requires the judge to consider a limited number of issues. The most important of which is whether a case is burdensometo the jury; that is the effect of section 43(5) of the2003 Act. There is a definition of what may make a case burdensome that we have partly touched on in earlier debates: complexity, length or both. The judge then has to assess whether complexity or length can be dealt with by procedural matters and if it should become a procedural question. There is only one other further prerequisite in the current legislation. That is that the judge is prohibited by law from coming to the conclusion that to dispense with the jury would be reasonable if it would severely and significantly disadvantage the prosecution.