Among former senior judge Brian Leveson's recommendations to the government for easing the backlog in the criminal courts is removing the right to be tried by a jury in certain cases. "I don't rejoice in these recommendations," said Leveson, "but I do believe they're absolutely essential."

The right to be judged by a group of your peers forms part of the bedrock of the English legal system. But jury trials themselves are controversial, and many democracies worldwide do not rely on them at all.

Italy
The criminal law system in Italy is a "hybrid" of US-UK "adversarial" trials, in which prosecution and defence present their cases before a judge and jury; and the European "inquisitorial", in which a judge investigates a case, collects evidence and questions witnesses themselves, said the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender.

In certain courts, professional judges work alongside "lay" judges – non-professional members of the public selected from a list of eligible citizens: there is a minimum age and education level, and they cannot be members of the armed forces, police or clergy.

India
Jury trials, introduced under British colonial rule, were abolished after an infamous 1959 case in which a navy commander was acquitted by a jury of murdering his English wife's lover despite "overwhelming evidence" – including his own confession.

After decades of concern about the jury system, the verdict "wrote the death warrant of jury trials in India", said the BBC; they were gradually phased out before being officially abolished in 1973. Most of Asia's common law jurisdictions (countries such as Singapore, Pakistan and Malaysia) have also abolished jury trials, amid concerns that juries are susceptible to bias.

Germany
Jury trials were abolished in Germany in 1924 and most cases are tried by a professional judge or a panel of "lay" judges known as Schöffen. Councils compile lists of members of the public "deemed suitable", who are then chosen by committee for a five-year term, said The Guardian. They must be between 25 and 69 years old, and "religious ministers, certain politicians and health professionals working in the court system are among those excluded".

From memoirs to horror and everything in between, graphic novels entertain, inform or even scare readers with their striking visuals and text. These are a few of the most gripping to get you started.

This Beautiful, Ridiculous City by Kay Sohini
In her debut graphic memoir, Kay Sohini pays tribute to her love for New York City, a "crush" she developed while watching American TV shows as a young girl in Kolkata, said Rachel Cooke in The Guardian. Visually, Sohini's graphic novel is a "tour de force", said Tehneer Oksman in The Washington Post, a work of "careful artisanship", reminding readers that "every representation of New York is a kind of revealing fantasy".

Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls
Hulls' debut memoir "Feeding Ghosts" is only the second graphic novel to scoop the Pulitzer Prize for memoir or autobiography. It tells the story of her grandmother, a persecuted journalist who fled China; her mother's elite upbringing in Hong Kong; and her own childhood in the US. Filled with "compelling characters and haunting illustrations", it's a fascinating read, said Robert Ito in The New York Times.

Big Jim and the White Boy by David Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson
This remarkable reimagining of Mark Twain's 1884 "Huckleberry Finn" expands "the canvas of Twain's work without losing the scope, flavour and humour of the original", said Forbes. Offering more "nuanced perspectives on race relations", Walker and Anderson's work is a "modern classic" that goes "well beyond the retelling of the familiar story" of Jim and Huck's adventures on the Mississippi.

Macron the snake has shown us nothing but spite – this circus shames Britain
Carole Malone in the Daily Express
Emmanuel Macron is "the bloke" who "did his level best to annihilate this country" during Brexit, writes Carole Malone. Britain's given him the "thick end of a billion quid" to help stop immigrants crossing the Channel yet "France has done sod all". So "why the hell are we rolling out the red carpet" for this "charlatan"? The King may "feel an affinity to Macron" but Charles is "out of touch" if he thinks the British people "feel the same".

I fear for New York
Monica Porter in The Spectator
"As a kid", I "loved New York", writes Monica Porter. My family settled in the "glittering" city after "escaping" communism in Hungary. And while my last visit was "not a happy experience", there was always the "hope" of a new mayor "reversing the years of failure and decline". That hope is "now dead", because the frontrunner to be the next mayor is Zohran Mamdani, who "denies being a communist" but has "proto-Marxist" views. My parents must be "turning in their graves".

Britain has always loved nepo babies
Ella Dorn on The New Statesman
"It's like a Mario Puzo novel: the Beckhams are brawling," writes Ella Dorn. Brooklyn Beckham has "accidentally become a boogeyman for his downwardly mobile contemporaries", because while many of them are "struggling just to get a job interview", the "archetypal 'nepo baby'" has managed to "fail upwards". The "supernatural qualities" of celebrities "pass from generation to generation", and the Beckhams are "doing a public service" by entertaining us, because "inter-generational sagas" never "get old".