Lord Goldsmith today unveiled controversial proposals to abolish the use of juries in complex fraud trials, insisting that the measures did not amount to general attack on the historic legal tradition of the jury trial.

The Attorney General plans to invoke a change in the law, passed by Parliament more than 18 months ago, allowing cases expected to last for more than three months to be heard by a single judge aided by expert assessors.

The move will forsake the 800-year tradition, enshrined in the Magna Carta, that a panel of 12 jurors tries defendants. Legal experts say this places an 'intolerable burden' on lay jury members, and blame it for the collapse of a number of high-profile white-collar fraud cases.

One of the most costly collapses was the Jubilee Line extension fraud case, which was dramatically abandoned in March after 21 months' of evidence, at a cost to the taxpayer of £60 million. One juror said that having to attend the trial had wrecked their lives; one asked to be dismissed for stress and another said he had difficulty surviving on the expenses rate.

The Government will seek a vote on the issue in both the Commons and the Lords this autumn. It is expected to face fierce opposition among Law Lords, some of whom consider it an attack on an ancient cornerstone of the justice system.

But civil liberties groups argue that it is the 'thin end of the wedge', describing the measure as 'justice-lite' and saying that failure in jury trials is a symptom of weak management.

Announcing the proposal today, Lord Goldsmith said: "This provision is not part of a general assault on jury trial. The Government is strongly in favour of trial by jury in the vast majority of cases, where it will remain absolutely appropriate.

"If this were the thin end of the wedge it’s the thinnest end of the wedge there can conceivably be."

He said that fewer than 20 cases a year were likely to be affected by the reform. At present, he said, there was a "double standard" where convictions were gained in simple, petty frauds, but cases that were more complex had either to be abandoned or never got before a court.

"We can’t have a situation of easy-to-prosecute blue-collar crime and unprosecutable white-collar crime," he said. "It is important that people running fraud at a much higher level should be brought to justice as well."

Lord Goldsmith said that it was currently too expensive, too difficult and too lengthy to bring some complex fraud cases, adding: "The Government believes that the answer is trial without a jury."

Today’s proposal would shorten trials, reduce costs and allow the full charges to be put before a court, rather than forcing prosecutors to water down allegations to make them manageable for jurors.

The Government has already brought in measures which ended another ancient tradition - the double jeopardy rule - under which no defendant can be tried twice for the same crime.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights group Liberty, said: "This Government has long proved its lack of enthusiasm for our age-old traditions of jury trial.

"No-one should be under any illusion that this policy will stay restricted to serious fraud cases. Evidential complexity is an excuse that may be made with a whole host of trials."

Under Part 7 of the Criminal Justice Act - which gained Royal Assent in November 2003 - prosecutors will be able to apply to a Crown Court judge to allow the case to be heard without a jury.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton QC, the Lord Chancellor, last month announced separate moves to curb long-running criminal trials by changing the way Legal Aid is paid to lawyers, as he pledged: "The days of the 18-month trial are over."

The Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesman, Mark Oaten, said: "Yet again Labour seem prepared to abandon the principle of fair trials and justice that have served this country well for decades. The trial by jury is at the heart of our judicial system. For complex trials like fraud it should be possible to create banks of jurors with the skills required to deal with these cases."

Roger Smith, director of the civil rights group Justice, said: "The Attorney General should concentrate on improving prosecutions, wait to see how recent improvements in judicial case management - only introduced in March - actually work, and stop blaming the referee for embarrassing court defeats. We should shorten jury trials, not remove them."

The Bar Council, which represents 14,000 barristers, also said juries were not to blame for the length and cost of complex fraud trials. Guy Mansfield, QC, the chairman, said: "People trust juries. The same cannot be said for many other parts of the justice system. To abolish juries is therefore a retrograde step.

"It will send the wrong signal to the public, namely that white-collar criminals will not face a full-blown trial by their peers, and instead will be treated to a lesser form of ‘justice lite’. This is unacceptable for people who bankrupt corporations, raid pension funds and destroy jobs for personal gain.

"This measure smacks of the thin end of the wedge for jury trial, and we will lobby Parliament to reject the measure when put to it for a vote."

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