“Trial by jury involves ordinary people in the day –to-day administration of justice and thus prevents the domination of the system by professional judges” The point that this is making is that a jury is constituted of lay people who may understand the guilty party a little more than a judge is able to. It is understandable that a judge is a person that has seen people appear before him on similar charges repeatedly. Therefore, he would not judge this person with the same frame of mind as a group of fresh jurors would. For most of the group, it will be the first time that they have been put in a situation like this and will therefore most probably make their decision without being prejudice or discriminating against that person for any reason.
The next point that I would like to make is that under Article 6 of The Human Rights Act 1998 – every human being has a right to a fair trial. This may not necessarily mean having a jury present. However, if it is clear to see that a jury will give the person a fair trial then this must be granted.
From the research that I have carried out, I can also see that juries are vetted before they are called for services. The requirements for jury service are:
- On the electoral register
- Resident in the UK for at least five years since the age of thirteen.
A person can be disqualified from jury service if they :
- Have previously ever been sentenced to a prison of five years or more.
- Have served a prison sentence/ suspended sentence within the last years
- Have been on probation or under a community service order during the last ten years.
- Are on bail prior to criminal proceedings.
Looking at the above requirements and also disqualifications that a juror must be selected under, there should be no concern in electing an unfair jury. The selection requirements first came to light in 1978 at the trial of R v Aubrey, Berry & Campbell.
When looking at the past statistics, It can be seen that juries in general are only used in a small proportion of cases. The statistics show that in 2002, 65% of defendants who pleaded not guilty to all charges were totally acquitted. Only 35% were convicted. Of the 65% that were acquitted, 32% were acquitted by the jury alone after a full trial and 12% acquitted by the jury on the direction of the judge due to things such as the prosecution having in sufficient evidence for conviction. (Judicial Statistics 2002)
Now looking at the argument from the opposing side, where it can be detrimental to have a jury present.
Firstly it has been known that juries have been intimidated in the past. There was reports of this during the trial for terrorists in Northern Ireland, due to this the jury had to be suspended.
There has also been evidence of bribes being offered to jury members also known cases of violence & intimidation. (R v Comerford 1998). Due to such reports and evidence being found, the royal commission on criminal justice found it necessary to make every effort to protect jurors from the possibility of intimidation or violence. As a result of this cases that they deemed to be ‘sensitive’ should be tried in courtrooms where the public gallery does not face the jury box and also trying to make sure that eating areas for juries are kept separate from the general public.
Legislation was also brought in with the criminal justice & public order act 1994, and then substituted by the youth justice & criminal evidence act 1999. The latter added to offences of intimidating, harming or threatening to harm jurors, witnesses or individuals assisting in the trial.
When a jury is put together, most of the members would never have been in such a situation. Therefore, their understanding of the court system may not be as much as the court may expect. Therefore, the team of jurors maybe too easily influenced by what members of the counsel say to them. Due to this, the issues at hand could be compromised. It has also been known that jurors can find it difficult to follow the evidence presented in front of them in cases such as fraud trials.
Juries have also been known to feel over sympathetic to claimants. They can tend to award over generous awards due to their lack of being able to put a round figure on a person ‘s reputation or other damages they maybe asked to calculate.
In the 1980’s there was a case against the star newspaper, which involved the politician Jeffrey Archer. The paper alleged that he paid a prostitute for sex. He was awarded a record breaking £500,000 for libel damages.
On balance there are strong arguments on both sides. I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer. A trial by jury has both advantages & disadvantages. In my opinion, I feel there are some cases such as defamation, where trials can be carried out without a jury. This is due to the judge having a better idea about the amount of damages to award to a claimant. However, in a trial such as murder I feel that lay people would be able to do a better job of deciding a person’s innocence or guilt. In relation to the judge the jury would approach they would approach the case with a completely different mindset.
So finally, trying to answer the question of: To what extent do you consider that restriction of the availability of trial by jury would be a necessary & justifiable reform of the justice system?
Cannot be answered in one go, it really depends on the type of trial and the issues involved. As I have mentioned before, cases where juries maybe confused by the evidence such as fraud cases, for this type of case, it may not be necessary to have a jury present. However, if one is required then these people should have expected knowledge of accounts in this context.
Bibliography
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Ingman The English Legal Process (2004) Oxford University Press
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Slapper and Kelly English Legal System (2004) Cavendish
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Stychin and Mulcahy Legal Method: Text and materials (2003) Sweet & Maxwell.
- Hand out given: Common Law reasoning and institutions.
