Source: Quillette
by Ralph Leonard
“There is a contradiction at the heart of the revised justice system that is about to come into being. If trial by jury remains our method of trying the most serious crimes, this implies that it is the best way of litigating criminal cases. If so, then we are accepting that ‘non-serious’ cases are going to be tried using an inferior form of litigation. That will create a two-tier legal system. The irony is that, over the past year, public discourse has been obsessed with what some are calling a crisis of national identity. Does ‘Englishness’ exist? If so, is it good? What are its ethnic boundaries? Yet, jury trial, something that is very important to English history, identity, and our understanding of ourselves — something that has been an ancient, even ancestral, English right, is facing a wrecking ball.” (12/23/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/12/23/the-strange-death-of-english-justice-trial-by-jury/