Emancipation
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales
Britain's empty jury seats...
 As the British governments have covertly reduced the role of a jury of citizens in contributing to the fair application of the law, so the rule of law has become socially devisive.
There are compelling arguments in support of increasing the role of juries in both criminal and civil law.
The nature of British politics has been shaped by the wills of political parties and we now have a situation where what becomes law is largely minority factional dogma transposed into legislative prose. The community has been effectively distanced from any say in the legislative process with members of parliament following, for the majority of the time, the dictates of their party whips.
The seminal work of the Levellers on constitution recognised the danger of professional politicians and political parties in corrupting the decision-making processes and in preventing Parliament becoming a forum reflecting the will of the people. The Levellers were right and alas the disastrous picture of political corruption they painted and sought to avoid has in fact become the reality of British politics.
One of the last bastions or rational defence against arbitrary decisions is the jury. The Levellers always reiterated the importance of the jury in enabling a fair judgement on the events surrounding a person's reason for coming before a court. The logic of the Levellers remains pertinent in that in a country where legislation is now moulded and fashioned far from any influence of the community then in its application the role of the community becomes more important in assessing the fair application of that law. But the preferences of the political parties are more than apparent from their acts during the last centuries where legislation has become increasingly the product of specific political party dogmas and juries have been reduced and in many cases replaced by magistrates. Magistrates tend to apply the letter of the law more directly because they rely on a lawyer to interpret the law and as a result the common sense of the role of the community conscience in deciding guilt has been severely reduced. Proof of this can be appreciated in the fact that magistrates acquit far less than juries, they are also less reflective and are not in a position to nullify the law. Without a jury present, this results in an almost codified semi-automatic legal process. Magistrates have become an extension of the expression of the political vectors which fashioned the legislative content emanating from a political party.
Justice under such a system can no longer be considered to be equitable because it is blind nor is it impartial in the sense of weighing up the relevance of the law to particular cases.
The magistrate system has been criticized for its inefficiency and massive waste of public resources. The Times (October 19, 2006) reported that police officers and prosecutors created an “alarming” catalogue of bungling and inefficiency leading to delays in magistrates’ court cases that cost taxpayers £173 million a year. In 2004-05 there were 190,466 magistrates’ court trials and more than 2.8 million pre-trial hearings but just under two thirds of trials (117,922) and more than a quarter of pre-trial hearings (784,000) did not go ahead. Between 150,000 and 180,000 ineffective pretrial hearings resulted from prosecution failings.
The legal appeal processes under statutes do not make use of juries in spite of the fact that enforcements or punishments can result in loss of liberty, home, money and other assets. This situation, within the non-criminal law area, is of increasing concern as the penalties and punishments applied by agencies become more onerous. Indeed, magistrates can send individuals to prison.
Serious thought needs to be given to a re-evaluation of the benefits of juries as the presence of the community conscience in the application of the law. The politicians have effectively removed the role of the community participation in legislation and the trend is to marginalise the partcipation of the people from the application of the law. This will result in a dangerously politicised legal system.
Our Minister of Justice
It is notable that in the government's green paper on "The Governance of Britain" setting out a basis for a constitutional settlement, no mention is made of the importance of juries. As Minister of Justice, Jack Sraw does not have a good track record in demonstrating any understanding of the importance of juries. In November 1999 the BBC reported that the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, was planning to remove the option of jury trial for some defendants and had rejected criticism by lawyers and civil rights groups over his plans. His Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill unveiled in the Queen's Speech axed the ancient right of defendants to elect for trial by jury in some cases. Instead, magistrates would decide which court so-called "either-way" offences should be heard in. At present the defendant picks. Straw claimed the new system would save £105m a year.
Straw even claimed the Law Society and Bar Council opposed the move, not on principle, but because it could hurt their members. Jack Straw made the extraordinary statement that "Trial by jury is a key freedom in our democracy, but giving defendants a choice of courts is not. It is frankly eccentric, which is why we in England and Wales are almost alone in allowing this arrangement to continue." When in opposition Jack Straw had spoken out against this change when the move was suggested in Parliament. The NGO Liberty felt the Bill would result in more wrongful convictions, less confidence in criminal justice, and more widespread perceptions of unfairness. The Law Society expressed concern that the proposals would favour professional groups and clog up the courts with appeals and penalise minorities who opt for a jury trial more often, because they have less confidence in magistrates and the police.
Economics
Jack Straw's assertion on the economies achieved in reducing the role of juries are factually incorrect. Indeed, juries if applied more widely to both criminal and civil cases can reduce overall legal costs. This issue will be reviewed in a forthcoming article.
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