Over the summer I spent a day at Highbury Magistrates' Court, a looming brutalist structure on the A1 where smart Clerkenwell starts to bleed into the scruffier postcodes of north London. For seven hours in a series of stiflingly overheated courtrooms I watched the wheels of justice in action – or, as one hard-bitten defence solicitor put it, “the meatgrinder”. I was there to try to get a sense of how the government’s proposed reforms to justice system – namely, moving thousands of cases from crown courts into magistrates’ courts in an attempt to deal with a spiralling backlog and unconscionable waiting times – might play out in practice. Since then, the reforms to curtail the right to a jury trial spear-headed by David Lammy under Keir Starmer have been watered down by Andy Burnham, who was a vocal critic of the plans at the time. The concept of judge-only trials has now been scrapped. But the Courts and Tribunals Bill back in the Commons today (13 October) still contains the provision removing the right of many defendants in either-way offences (excluding the most serious offences like murder and rape, but assault, domestic violence, drug offences and burglary) to opt for a trial by jury and empowers the courts to send their case to the magistrates instead. It also increases magistrates’ sentencing powers, from 12 months (up from six months in 2024) to 18 or even 24 months, and could potentially enable them to hear cases where the sentence is up to three years. This means that, despite the fanfare about Burnham and Justice Secretary Alex Norris saving jury trials, the core of Starmer and Lammy’s proposals remain. Under these plans, 25-30,000 cases, some incredibly serious, would move out of crown courts. Government figures suggest this would increase magistrates’ sitting days by 8,500 – 7.5 per cent a year – although experts warn this is an underestimate. To meet the demand, the government would need to increase the number of volunteer magistrates by 10 per cent a year. So what does life currently look like inside a magistrates’ court? Rachel Cunliffe: Magistrates' courts can't fix our justice deadlock newstatesman.com/politics/20…