analyse the role of the jury service within the criminal justice system in england and wales

7/29/2019 Analyse the Role of the Jury Service Within the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales

1/4

Analyse The Role Of The Jury Service Within The Criminal JusticeSystem In England And Wales. To What Extent Can A Jury Ignore TheLaw?

Democracy is one of the keywords around the United Kingdom. It can be termed as aninstitution and has many arms, one of which is the jury. The jury system has been usedfor over 1000 years but it was in 1215, though, when the trial by ordeal was condemnedthat juries became the usual method of trying criminal cases. Originally, juries wereused simply to provide local knowledge and were termed as witnesses. With time, their roles were increased considerably and they became assessors of facts. In fact,nowadays, the jury of '12 good men and true' is quintessential to the British legalsystem. The latter's legitimacy is strengthened by the fact that the jury is comprised of lay people chosen at random. This randomness has been termed as vital to ensuredemocracy. But, on the other hand, the jury has been victim of heavy criticisms too.

Lord Devlin illustrates the importance of the jury within the criminal justice system by

stating that, 'It is lamp that shows freedom lives.'' Lord Taylor, the former Lord Chief Justice, firmly backed Lord Devlin on this issue. Unfortunately, not everyone shares theabove views. Indeed, there have been some heavy criticisms against the jury. PennyDarbyshire via the Criminal Law Review in 1991 characterised the jury of being an,'anti-democratic, irrational and haphazard legislator, whose erratic and secret decisionsrun counter to the rule of law''. The major part of the criticism came when she stressedon the fact that juries are not at all random in its selection process. Moreover, she laidemphasis on the aspect that juries, in the pursuit of justice, do ignore the law and thusmay convict the innocent or let go of the wrongdoer. On the other hand, despite thisarticle, people still do believe in the jury system. For instance, we do have MichaelMansfield QC who is in full favour of the system and points out that it indeed is

democracy in action.

Before heading to any hasty conclusion, we need to review the whole system starting bythe basics, which is their role and function within the legal system. The function of the

jury is to decide on matters of fact. They function in collaboration with the judges whodecides on matters of law. The judges have to explain the law to the juries who simplyhave to apply them to the facts and give the final verdict. The juries do take an oath toperform the task with faith and to give out true verdict according to the evidence. It is tobe noted that the jurors, after being sworn in, cannot refuse to reach a decision. Thishappened in 1997 when Judge Cooray sentenced two women to thirty days in prisonafter they had failed to deliver a verdict. The reasons given by the jurors for the

contempt caused more than one to raise an eyebrow on the selection process and thesystem overall. Actually of them stated that she could not even understand the case asit was too complicated while the other explained that she had reasons based on her ethics. Some do criticise the system since it enforces people to be part of the jury. Infact, it is said that the jury service is a civic responsibility and failure to answer a jurysummons leads to a criminal offence punishable by a fine. Torn between their civic dutyand sometimes an extremely tough experience, the potential jurors are at a loss.


2/4

Most of those who have served on a jury have had a common word to describe theexperience; vexing. In view of the description of their functions, the jurors have to dealwith facts which are, sometimes, simply scaring to say the least. The worst aspect of their roles within the legal system is that they can be the target of the defendants on thecase. Unsurprisingly, in 2003, two illegal immigrants were convicted of various offences

under the Terrorism Act 2000. From investigations, it was deduced that these twopersons were involved in collecting money for Al Qa'ida. This could have been the alarmfor the jurors. The trial was taking place at Leicester Crown Court and it was reported tobe nothing less than chaotic. We had jurors retiring overnight, some bursting into tearsand others simply could not be themselves anymore. At the end of the day, the jury wasdismissed. The jurors, indeed, have a herculean task and unfortunately, they do not getthe support needed after sensitive cases.

One vital aspect of the jury system is the selection process. As we have seen above,the jury service is considered as a public duty that the general public should willinglyundertake. Additionally, there is a fine for not performing the civic duty. To start with, the

requirements at present via legislations provide that for someone to qualify as a juror,he has to be aged in between 18 and 70, he has to be on the electoral register and hehas to live in the United Kingdom for 5 years. This is actually where the key word usedover and over by academics and critics come into play. The word is randomness. It is amatter of fact that the actual juror is randomly selected by means of a ballot in opencourt. In response to the criticism of Penny Darbyshire as exposed above, someacademics have pointed out that randomness does not equal representation andtherefore it was possible, within the definition of the randomness attribute to have, for instance, all males or all females on a particular jury. There are some problems with theselection process in the sense that electoral registers tend to be inaccurate as theymisreport the actual number of people in a region. Some reasons were given such asthat some people tend to move to other places very often. Hence The RuncimanCommission recommended that every reasonable step should be taken in order toavoid this inaccuracy.

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 which came into effect in April 2005 allowed the judiciaryto serve as jurors. As expected there were major criticisms on the issue that these

jurors would be biased but the courts rejected this as being false stating that theexpectations placed on ordinary citizens in relation to jury service had to be extended tomembers of the criminal justice system. Furthermore they do take the jury oath and thuscan be expected to comply with the terms of their oath and the directions of the judge.In addition to that, the maximum precautions are taken so that the jurors do not messthings up. For instance, we do have the jury vetting where the Crown checks thebackground of potential jurors despite the fact that this practice is against the ideal of the jury being selected at random. Is it that Penny Darbyshire was correct in her criticism? Probably not' would be the response of the Crown who would justify thevetting system on the basis that it is vital to make sure that jurors are not likely todivulge any secrets outside the juror's room.


3/4


4/4

This situation did repeat several times in cases like Kronlid and others. Nothing could bedone actually. Had there been some political courage, an act of parliament is the onlyway out. It never came. The best that had been done was to considerably reduce thenumber of cases where we do have juries. In anyways, there is a desperate need for amajor reform.

analyse the role of the jury service within the criminal justice system in england and wales

Documents