Under the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007, the Director of Public Prosecutions can issue a certificate that any trial on indictment should be conducted without a jury.

The Act’s provisions must be renewed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland every two years.

In a submission to the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), The Bar of Northern Ireland said Northern Ireland should eventually be brought in line with the rest of the UK, where it is up to a judge to determine whether a trial should be conducted with or without a jury.

The Bar said that allowing the DPP to make a “subjective” decision without giving any explanation was “problematic”.

In England and Wales, a judge “must be satisfied that there is ‘evidence’ of a real and present danger that jury tampering will occur and that, despite precautionary steps such as police protection, there remains a ‘substantial’ likelihood of jury tampering making it necessary in the interest of justice for the trial to be conducted without a jury”.

The Bar continued: “This includes the safeguards of judicial oversight, high objective thresholds and consideration of alternative precautionary steps which are all built into the legislation.

“We believe that in the longer term Northern Ireland should seek to move towards this regime as soon as it is considered practically possible.”

However, the NIO said figures showing 197 recorded offences of intimidation or threat to harm witnesses and jurors in 2016/17, making the current law necessary. It expressed concern that a law like that in England and Wales would prove inadequate for Northern Ireland.