Subject: oppose the Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:39:28 +0000

Dear Mr Lansley

As you know, the Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill, which would limit trials
by jury in complex fraud cases, will receive its third reading in the Commons
on 25 January.  I urge you to oppose this bill because of the poor precedent
that it sets for abridgement of the right to trial by jury.

The Labour government seems to believe that the rights of the individual,
when inconvenient to the the government's ends, ought to be curtailed.  This
paternalistic attitude appears not only in the government's desire to remove
from fraud defendants the right to trial by jury, but also in its desire to
remove from prospective jurors the right to decide these cases.  This
government seems to believe that ordinary citizens aren't competent to
understand the complexities of expert testimony and international crime.
This attitude is an insult to citizens, and the practical problem that the
government faces isn't anything that can't be solved by better trial
management.

My most forceful objection to this bill, though, is the precedent that it sets:
if the right to jury trial is removed for one class of defendants, can other
classes be far behind?  Will Britain degenerate into a system akin to that of
the United States, where terror suspects are carted off to military prisons and
never afforded a jury trial?  Surely we are better than that, and mustn't allow
ourselves down that road.

Regards

Matthew Belmonte
[address]