Role of the Jury in the English Legal System

Role of the instrument panel in the English jural SystemThe control panel rivulet is considered to be one of the around controversial elements of the justice ashes in the UK. The practice of runnel by board has shown over the years to cave in many disadvantages that which ca economic consumptions concern to decree and must be reconsidered by Parliament. The key issues that fall in arisen of the years relating to the use of juries be a) the experience and intellect of the jurors making discernments in complex chances b) the expensiveness and length of service of venire trials and C) the fairness of gore selection. This essay shall try to critically crush the role of the venire indoors the English legal system and justify why the control panel trial should no longer play a start up in the criminal and civil justice systems of the United Kingdom. discharge by venire was first introduced into the justice system in the duodecimal century, unless it was non a gu arantee until many years later, when a clause within the Magna Carta stated that no free man shall be taken or imprisonedexcept by the lawful essayment of his peers or by the law of the land1. The role of the venire has since evolved from the medieval time and was completely formed in the 18th century into what it is today2, with modern juries contend a vital role in assessing the occurrences of the cheek and, in the case of a criminal trial, determining whether the defendant is guilty beyond commonsensical doubt, or in the case of a civil trial, deciding whether the assumeant has the dear to damages on the balance of probabilities.Towards the end of the 1900s, public attention started to be drawn towards problems arising with instrument panel reliability, selection, experience, and bias. The cruel Courts look back by gentle umpire Auld in 2001 was a crucial argument in the discussions concerning control panel trials. Auld goes on to say that support for the jury syst em is non universal, especially among those who have been jurors.3 This suggests that there is a considerable amount of disconfirming opinion among former juror members about the jury system. The main drawbacks presented within this brood were a) lack of experienced jurors who represent variant social layers, b) silly ethnic minority representation, and c) the game character of the trial process, where the truth is non as important as victory.4 The turn rightness Act 2003 did as yet alter the jury system and selection process by stating that a) if the judge ruling the case is satisfied, certain fraud cases and cases where a danger of jury tampering existed argon not to be tried by a jury and b) the jury selection system had to be improved in order to provide more(prenominal) experienced and unbiased raft representing different social groups and ethnic minorities.5Statistics have shown that jury trials are actually very(prenominal) rare. Only one in every hundred crimin al trials are actually tried by jurors due to restrictions on the use of jury trials.6 But it is not only the restrictions imposed that make access to jury trial very complicated. What besides makes it complicated is the extortionate amount of g experienced and long period of times of time that must be put into each case, which puts jury trials at a disadvantage. These problems can make it extremely inconvenient and drain for both the defendant and, in particular, the members of the jury as they go out have to spend a lot of their time getting through the necessity procedures and partaking in the actual trial. Jury trials can last from a parallel days to many weeks, even months. During that period, members can be on a jury for more than one trial during their service.7 In one instance, a juror failed to turn up for a trial as she entrap it really boring, resulting in the trial being suspended before keep with 11 jurors.8 This suggests that sitting on a jury is not what is hyped up to be, and that the negatives vastly outweigh the positives of sitting on a jury.The qualification rules for jury selection has also been much criticised. According to the Juries Act 19749, the criteria to serving on a jury are 1) the person should be registered as a parliamentary or local elector 2) the person should not be less than 18 and no more than 65 years old 3) the jury should have been ordinarily resident in the UK for a period of at least five years since his or her 13th birthday. The cadence set out in the Act is quite narrow and should be broadened in order to ensure give out quality of juries. Ineligible persons embroil past and present members of the judiciary, other people who have been concerned with the nerve of justice, the clergy and mentally ill people. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 also disqualifies individuals who have served a custodial sentence within the past ten years, sure a lifetime custodial sentence, or are released on security and awai ting trial at the time the jury is summoned.10 However the issue is not in relation to the qualification of jurors, but the mere fact that jurors are subject to human error. As the selection criteria is very narrow, there will be individuals who are well educated as well as not some who are very responsible and some who are not and individuals who are wanting get gain a better understanding of the case while others just wanting to get home office as soon as possible. In the case of R v Litchfield,11it was up to the jury to decide whether or not negligence was bring in negligence. As a result, the jurys finding of fact was confused and cultures from the judge had to be restated. It is clear to say that members of the jury in this case were either not educated well enough or had no experience at all in dealing a complex judgement, which is presumably the case with all jurors.12Many jurors do encounter problems that are far beyond their training and experience, as the lack of legal knowledge allows prosecutors to easily throw off jurors to believe their assertions. But not only are jurors un consummate and inexperienced, they often disregard logic presented by the lawyers because of their prejudices, past experience, or moral sentiment. slightly jurors may even follow the majority and make the same verdict as the stronger personalities. But the main problem is that, as jurors do not usually know the law and legal procedures, they are often unavailing to understand complex evidence or to assess the reliability of a witness or evidence. A research study by Matthews, autograph and Briggs13 shows that jurors fees very enthusiastic about their role in the trial process, however one triplet of jurors feel that it is inconvenient. The report also shows that well-educated skilled people and professionals are under-represented as only skilled manual workers and amateur workers have enough time to be part of longer trials. From this, it is clearly obvious that th e education level of many jurors is comparatively low. Approximately 60% of the respondents were confused and had difficulties while listening to evidence and following instructions. Furthermore, about 30% of jurors face a language barrier and would consume a translator. Having a translator would make the evidence unclear as translations are not always presented in the right way. The study also shows that a third of jurors are uncomfortable being in a courtroom, but also 90% of jurors are satisfied with being a member of the jury and realise he meaning and importance of the role. Additionally, 30% of jurors are not well educated (do not have a degree) and 40% of people have no knowledge of the court process. These statistics are an indication that jury selection must vastly improve. All these issues can be canonic by giving jurors more detailed instructions before trial starts and balancing the number of people with different education levels.Cheryl Thomas states in her research t hat there are serious race disproportions in the jury structure and ethnic minorities are truly under-represented.14 Thomas also agrees that instruction need to be more clear, simpler and broad as many jurors claim they have faced difficulties when studying such instructions. However, she also goes on to report that some of the problems concerning race stereotypes within the jury system are exceedingly exaggerated, and have found no proof that white jurors are presumable to be biased and make unfair verdicts. With that in mind, remedies must be made to ensure that it is a fair selection and that individuals from all backgrounds are represented in a jury trials. In 2007, the Ministry of Justice create the findings of the Jury novelty Project15 which revealed that most defendants in Crown Courts outside of capital of the United Kingdom will be tried by an all-white jury.The role of the jury in the English legal system remains a controversial part of the judicial system. Complicati ons have arisen by issues of jury selection costs and longevity of each trials and the experience and intellect of jury members summoned to partake as a jury member. With many sources proving that a) jurors lack the required intellect and experience to come up to complex trials and make fair judgements b) individuals from all backgrounds, especially ethnic minorities, are under-represented and c) the length of time for jury selection and trial being too long for an individual to handle suggests that the whole process of jury trials need to be reconsidered. A number of former jurors tend to have more of a negative opinion on the use of juries due to the fact that they did not know much about the law, instructions were not attached clearly, they could not tell whether to disregard a piece of evidence or not, along with many other issues. However while juries have been an organic part of the judicial system and being assessed by ones peers and not by the judiciary seems fair, non-j ury trials have had the least amount of criticism. It is clear to see that jury trials should no longer be a part of the legal system of England and Wales and that all aspects of a trial including analysing the facts of the case as well as the application of the law should only be the responsibility of the judiciary.BibliographyCasesR v Litchfield 2008 AC 507 (HL)LegislationsCriminal Justice Act 2003Juries Act 1974BooksCairns J and McLeod G, The passion Birthright of the large number of England The Jury in the History of the Common rectitude (1st edn, Hart publishing, 2002)Davies M, Croall H and Tyrer J, Criminal Justice An Introduction to the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales (3rd edn, Pearson-Longman 2010)Gibson B, Criminal Justice Act The Statute (1st edn, Waterside cabal 2005)Gary Slapper and Kelly David, The English Legal System (8th edn, Routledge-Cavendish 2006)ArticlesJER Stephens, The Growth of Trial by Jury in England (1896) 10 HLR 150, 155Michael Zander QC, Lord Justice Aulds Review of the Criminal Courts A Response (2001)UK Government Jury Service accessed 30 December 2016Huddersfield examiner Juror in Leeds court because she found trial boring Huddersfield cursory Examiner (Huddersfield, 21 February 2012)Linda Woolhether The Disadvantages of the Jury System accessed second January 2017Roger Matthews, Lynn Hancock and Daniel Briggs, Jurors perceptions, understanding, confidence and satisfaction in the jury system a study in six courts (Home Office, whitethorn 2004) accessed 3 January 2017Cheryl Thomas argon juries fair? (Ministry of Justice, February 2010) accessed 3 January 2017Cheryl Thomas Diversity and Fairness in the Jury System (Ministry of Justice, June 2007) accessed 4 January 20171 JER Stephens, The Growth of Trial by Jury in England (1896) 10 HLR 150, 1552 John Cairns and Grant McLeod, The Dearest Birthright of the People of England The Jury in the History of the Common Law (1st edn, Hart publishing, 2002)3 Michael Z ander QC, Lord Justice Aulds Review of the Criminal Courts A Response (2001)4 Malcom Davies, Hazel Croall and Jane Tyrer, Criminal Justice An Introduction to the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales (3rd edn, Pearson-Longman 2010)5 Bryan Gibson, Criminal Justice Act The Statute (1st edn, Waterside Press 2005)6 Gary Slapper and Kelly David, The English Legal System (8th edn, Routledge-Cavendish 2006)7 UK Government Jury Service accessed 30 December 20168 Huddersfield Examiner Juror in Leeds court because she found trial boring Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield, 21 February 2012)9 Juries Act 197410 Criminal Justice Act 200311 2008 AC 507 (HL)12 Linda Woolhether The Disadvantages of the Jury System accessed 2nd January 201713 Roger Matthews, Lynn Hancock and Daniel Briggs, Jurors perceptions, understanding, confidence and satisfaction in the jury system a study in six courts (Home Office, May 2004) accessed 3 January 201714 Cheryl Thomas Are juries fair? (Ministry of Justice, February 2010) accessed 3 January 201715 Cheryl Thomas Diversity and Fairness in the Jury System (Ministry of Justice, June 2007) accessed 4 January 2017