Ministers could extend juryless trials ‘by a stroke of a pen’ Sunday Times page 2 @thetimes by @emilydugan A new power to switch crimes to judge-only hearings without parliamentary scrutiny could be abused by future governments, leading barristers fear “Flora Page KC, who represented victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal in the public inquiry, said: “It’s the power, without any proper parliamentary scrutiny, to create new offences which will have juryless trials that really worries me. It’s bad enough getting rid of juries in serious fraud cases, which troubles me already, but at least that’s out there, that’s in the legislation. What I find really troubling is the idea that any serious or complex case could, by a stroke of a pen and a statutory instrument, become another judge-only trial.” “Let’s say officials or ministers were involved, and the police bring charges because they think that’s appropriate, and then the government could probably do pretty quickly a statutory instrument to say, ‘Right, that’s a judge-only trial’. And then you’ve got a political trial being heard without the sort of public scrutiny it otherwise would have, and without members of the public deciding on guilt or not guilt.” thetimes.com/article/dac2265…