Contempt for ordinary citizens is the order of the day in the United Kingdom, which has fallen and can’t seem to get up.

[T]he [British] government is moving to allow jury trials for “indictable only” offenses such as murder and “either way” offenses with likely sentences of more than three years in prison. Judge-only “swift” courts will hear cases ranging from burglary and theft to sexual assault and stalking. Judges will also sit without a jury in fraud and financial cases deemed too complex for jurors.

This is…disappointing. It’s also a revival of the 350-year-old Bushell’s Case but with the addendum of eliminating the case’s question altogether. Bushell’s Case was a trial of a couple of government-defined religious miscreants during which the presiding judge refused to accept the jury’s acquittal verdict and jailed the ringleader, Edward Bushell, until he voted for the judge-approved verdict. That case was resolved on appeal in favor of Bushell and British commoners generally, extending as the appeal finally ruled habeas corpus to those commoners as well as the nobility.

Now the British government is moving to go beyond that presiding judge’s position and eliminate juries altogether in a vast number of cases. No juries, no verdicts that run counter to the government’s position.

This revival also is a clear expression of the contempt with which British government men and women hold their subjects: commoners are just too grindingly stupid to understand many kinds of cases, and so they must be led away so their Betters can handle them without any pesky commoner interference.

Juries? We ain’t got no juries. We don’t need no juries! We don’t have to show you any stinkin’ juries!