Modernising Criminal Courts: From review to reform

Swift Courts

The Independent Review emphasised incremental change. It proposed extending magistrates' sentencing powers (up to 12 months per offence) and creating a Crown Court Bench Division (CCBD): a hybrid forum made up of a judge and two magistrates, sitting without a jury, for either-way offences carrying sentences of three years or less. The aim was to preserve jury trials for serious indictable offences while introducing a middle tier to absorb pressure from the Crown Court.

The government's reforms, announced on 2 December 2025, adopt a more radical stance. Magistrates will be given the power to hand down sentences of up to 18 months – an increase from the 12 months proposed in the Independent Review – helping to ease pressure on the Crown Court so it can focus on the most serious offences. “Swift Courts” – judge-only trials for cases with a likely sentence of three years or less – would remove lay participation entirely for a substantial category of offences and are estimated to take around 20% less time than a jury trial. Rather than a district judge plus two magistrates, decision-making is consolidated in a single professional judge. Courts, rather than defendants, will have greater control over where borderline cases are heard, reflecting the Review's logic of reducing the volume of jury trials.

The most serious offences, including almost all indictable offences, will continue to have guaranteed jury trials. The practical impact will be felt at the margins – the mid-level cases that could be dealt with by either the Magistrates or the Crown Court.

Fraud and financial crime

Both frameworks recognise the unique challenges posed by complex fraud and economic crime trials, which are often multi-handed, digital-heavy and reliant on expert financial evidence. The Independent Review proposed a case-by-case power to dispense with juries where the subject matter falls “outside the understanding of the general public”, reflecting the Review's concern about whether  jurors can realistically comprehend highly technical material.

The government's proposal adopts that principle but reshapes it. Judge-only trials are proposed for “particularly technical and lengthy fraud and financial offences” to free up jurors who currently “give up months of their lives to hear burdensome cases”. In practice, that is still likely to require a discretionary assessment in each case. The new formulation repackages the same underlying questions that sat behind the “outside the understanding of the general public” test – how technicality and length are to be defined, what guidance will be given to judges and parties, and what safeguards are needed to maintain confidence in judge-only outcomes. The material published by the government so far does not spell out how “technical and lengthy” will be determined in practice, what role (if any) the earlier formulation will play, or what specific safeguards – such as detailed written judgments and clear appeal routes – will accompany judge-only determinations in serious fraud.

For corporates and individuals facing complex financial allegations, the identity of the fact-finder will now be a central consideration. It is likely to influence how expert evidence is structured and how early engagement with prosecutors is approached.

Efficiency versus legitimacy

Taken together, these reforms signal a significant shift in how complex evidence will be presented and tested in criminal courts. As we noted in our earlier analysis of the Independent Review, there is a real risk that accelerated forums and tighter timetables, combined with the prospect of judge-only trials, could generate pressure to resolve cases prematurely. The government has not, at this stage, taken forward the Review's proposals for non-binding early sentence indications or enhanced early guilty-plea discounts, and courts already have the Goodyear mechanism for binding indications of the likely maximum sentence, but the dynamics around early resolution will nonetheless evolve in a system that prizes speed.

The deeper issue is the balance between efficiency and legitimacy. Summary and hybrid forums inevitably offer fewer procedural protections, raising questions under Article 6 ECHR about the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal. The reforms – which could divert a quarter of cases from jury trial – invite scrutiny over whether speed is being pursued at the expense of fairness and perceived legitimacy.

The government frames its measures as “putting victims before tradition”. That reflects a real problem: more than a quarter of criminal cases remain unresolved for over a year, with violent and sexual offences accounting for almost half of those. Even where individual trials are relatively short, the volume of these cases, the need for special measures and the risk of adjournments mean they place sustained pressure on an already overstretched court system, and long delays undermine confidence for complainants and defendants alike. But the cultural and constitutional significance of jury trial in serious criminal matters remains a live issue, and changes of this kind are understandably attracting close attention from appellate courts and commentators.

Conclusion

The Independent Review laid the groundwork for modernisation through targeted reform. The government's announcement represents a bolder, more interventionist approach – extending magistrates' powers, creating a judge-only tier for mid-tier cases and opening the door to judge-only trials in complex fraud. For many observers, reforms of this scale will only be justified if they deliver a clear and sustained improvement in the speed and efficiency of the criminal courts.

The government's ambition is that justice should be both "swift and fair". But while speed can be tracked in waiting times and disposal rates, fairness is more difficult to measure and will ultimately be judged by whether defendants retain a real opportunity to present their cases properly and to have complex issues determined transparently by an adequately resourced court. Only time will tell whether that remains the case in practice.

Authored by Reuben Vandercruyssen, Liam Naidoo, Claire Lipworth, Alex Cumming, and Olga Tocewicz.