Maryam Syed & Vittoria Trigilio - Proposed Changes to Criminal Trials

The backlog of cases due to be tried in Criminal courts is no new phenomenon, but with the closing of physical courts due to COVID-19 adding to the pressure, there have been suggestions that changes should be made to jury trials, this has included scrapping them altogether for either way offences, in favour of a single judge and two magistrates, to more recently, reducing the number of people sitting on a jury from 12 to 7. In this episode of 7BR’s Part-Heard, Maryam Syed and Vittoria Trigilio discuss the work-ability of the proposals and, as the backlog continues to build, where do we go from here?