The British legal system has long experience of no-jury trials, but only in outposts. Courts where judges sit alone – presiding over the trial, hearing the evidence and then reaching a verdict – were introduced in Northern Ireland in 1973. They were a response to a series of “perverse acquittals” in terrorist trials, which were the result of either partisan jurors or jury intimidation. Edward Heath’s Government, fearful that the justice system was in danger of breaking down, set up a commission chaired by Lord Diplock, a senior judge, to investigate the problem. It proposed the idea of judges conducting trials alone. The hearings became known as Diplock courts. They dealt with “scheduled offences”, usually related to terrorism. In recent years, after the paramilitary ceasefires,…