The Law Society president has defended the right to jury trial following reports that the government is considering removing some offences from the jurisdiction of the Crown court.

Proposals to make low value theft offences triable only in the magistrates’ court are understood to be among plans being considered by ministers for inclusion a white paper on criminal justice reform next month.

But John Wotton said Chancery Lane is ‘strongly opposed’ to limitations on the right to jury trial. ‘Those at risk of a conviction where their liberty, their livelihood or their reputation is at risk should have the right to be tried by a jury of their fellow citizens,’ he said.

Wotton added that any limit on the ‘ancient bulwark against state oppression’ would be in direct contradiction to the clause in the coalition government agreement to ‘protect historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury’.

He accepted that more should be done to save money by encouraging use of the magistrates’ courts, but said it should be achieved by curtailing magistrates’ power to decline jurisdiction, not by denying defendants the right to jury trial.

Mike Jones, chair of the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association described the reported move as another example of ‘budget justice thinking’, with more to do with ‘economy with justice’ rather than ‘justice with economy’. He said the almost 900-year-old right to jury trial was an important way of demonstrating the system’s fairness.

‘It is very easy to look for ways to get justice on the cheap,’ he said, but ‘public confidence in the criminal justice system is damaged as much by assaults on the rights of the accused as it is by ignoring the needs and interests of victims.’

However, John Fassnfelt, chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, said he backed the removal of the right to trial by jury for offences of theft worth less than £500.

The change would save a ‘tremendous’ amount of money and reduce the number of cases where prolific offenders charged with low value thefts elect Crown court trial in the hope that the charges will be dropped.

‘If you take these cases out of the Crown court, you free up court time to deal with other more serious cases,’ he said.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said the government had no plans to remove trial by jury.