Always on
This project successfully funded on 20th April 2026, you can still support them with a donation.
Save Jury Trials – Support JUSTICE
London, Greater London, United Kingdom
Aim
Help JUSTICE defend jury trials and stop plans to push the public out of justice and threaten fair trials for all.
JUSTICE is launching a focused effort to defend juries, as the government presses ahead with reforms that will dramatically reduce their role in criminal trials.
Thanks to the incredible generosity given both directly and via this Crowdfunder, we have now raised almost £15,000 for our work to defend juries and set out real solutions to get the criminal justice system working.
The problem with proposals to cut jury trials
Ministers have announced plans to scrap juries in all but the most serious cases, with magistrates’ courts and lone judges taking on thousands more trials.
JUSTICE strongly opposes these proposals.
Juries underpin public confidence in the justice system. They put ordinary people in the driving seat, giving us all a chance to observe the legal process up close and determine outcomes. This sets them apart from many areas of public life, where elites have the final say. Shifting power away from juries and concentrating it in the judiciary could undermine trust in court verdicts.
Juries are not just democratic - they deliver fairer results. Drawn from the communities they serve, juries reflect society better than magistrates or individual judges, countering bias and discrimination through collective deliberation. Black and other minority defendants are more likely to be convicted in non-jury courts, evidence shows.
The argument for these reforms is already unravelling
Lacking any evidence that juries contribute to court delays, ministers have been forced to admit that sidelining them is not about really clearing the backlog.
That means there is a critical window to shape the debate and influence what happens next.
What your support will enable:
- Reaching 20k will drive impactful advocacy work to show politicians why cutting juries will weaken the system, not fix it. In Parliament and beyond, we will explain why life-changing decisions about innocence and guilt should be made by a cross-section of society rather than select individuals.
- Reaching 50k will boost our media outreach explaining how a lack of investment and bad planning is the source of the backlogs - not juries.
- Reaching 100k will enable crucial research challenging racial discrimination in the criminal courts. Jury trials are a vital safeguard against bias. Cutting them risks entrenching inequality and deepening mistrust.
- Reaching 250k will let us develop solutions for the whole criminal legal system, to fix backlogs, improve victims’ experiences, and ensure access to justice for all.
- Reaching 500k will fund a system-wide blueprint to fix criminal justice – a multi-year work programme to research and advocate for the changes we need.
There is still time to stop these proposals. With your help, we can push back.
By supporting JUSTICE today, you are standing up for fairness, equality, and the right of ordinary people to shape justice itself.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made