BLACK activists have raised concerns over government plans to apply judge-only trials retrospectively to defendants who were expecting jury trials.

Justice Secretary David Lammy announced in December that jury trials in England and Wales for crimes that carry a likely sentence of less than three years will be scrapped.

The reforms create “swift courts” under the government’s plan to tackle delays in the court system.

Serious offences including murder, robbery and rape will still go before a jury.

Campaigners warn that for black communities and other racialised groups already disproportionately stopped, charged, remanded and imprisoned, the proposal was a “real and immediate threat to fairness.”

Individuals who entered the criminal justice process with the legitimate expectation of a jury trial now face the prospect of having that safeguard removed, they warned. 

Operation Black Vote chairman David Weaver said: “Trial by jury is one of the last democratic protections ordinary citizens have against the power of the state. 

“Removing that right retrospectively sends a clear message: safeguards are conditional.

“Black communities already face disproportionate policing and charging. Juries bring community reality into the courtroom and act as a check on institutional assumptions.”

Mr Weaver said that shifting that power to a single judge, especially where imprisonment is on the table, “risks deepening racial disparities and further eroding trust in the criminal justice system.”

“That loss of trust will not stay in courtrooms. It will shape political judgement and influence voting choices,” he said.

Black Activists Against Cuts chairwoman Zita Holbourne said: “This move will disproportionately affect those who already face structural disadvantage. 

“Judges, however conscientious, operate within an institutional culture shaped by daily exposure to police evidence and prosecution narratives.

“Juries, drawn from the community, provide a democratic counterweight. 

“They reflect a range of social realities and are not embedded within the machinery of the system.”

She warned that retrospective removal of jury trials will “deepen mistrust, increase perceptions of injustice, and in our view risks increasing discrimination in outcomes.”

The groups have called on the government to reconsider any retrospective application of judge-only trials and to engage meaningfully with communities most affected by criminal justice reform.