The British government wants to scrap jury trials in order to clear the outstanding caseload
Record numbers of victims are waiting more than a year for their cases to be heard in the UK, and clearing the backlog “could take nearly 300 years,” Courts minister Sarah Sackman has said.
According to Ministry of Justice figures, there is currently a backlog of 80,061 cases in Britain’s crown courts, and 370,722 cases in lower magistrates’ courts, an increase of 5% and 11% on last year, respectively. Some 6,000 crown court cases have been waiting for more than two years, with 2,000 rape cases held up for more than a year.
The closure of courts and government institutions during the Covid-19 lockdowns is directly responsible for soaring wait times, with the crown court’s caseload doubling since 2020.
Speaking to Sky News on Friday, Sackman claimed that the ruling Labour Party is “starting to stabilize the backlog,” but “at this pace, it could take nearly 300 years to clear the backlog to pre-pandemic levels.”
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