Criminal Justice Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 7:30 pm on 15 September 2003.

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Photo of The Earl of Erroll The Earl of Erroll Crossbench 7:30, 15 September 2003

It is with great temerity that I, a layman, speak in the debate, but I do so because I did jury service a year ago. We have to be careful about thinking of juries as a bunch of people who can be easily influenced and have the wool pulled over their eyes.

I have great respect for juries as a result of my service, because everyone took their duties very seriously. Yes, in the jury room there was the usual split of two for hanging, two for acquitting, and eight undecided who then went one way or the other and the matter was dealt with. However, we wanted more information, because huge arguments went on in court without us present about what we were and were not to be allowed to hear. It was very frustrating, because it was as if we were idiots, and we were not.

The perfectly sensible people on juries are quite capable of filtering information and are probably less cynical than the judge and magistrates. They might have a more realistic view of who and what can be trusted. We are perhaps getting too frightened of putting too much control into place.

My second point is that if we are going to replace common law, which is a body of wisdom that has built up, by a rule-based system, that would be difficult and dangerous. One can draw those rules so tight that suddenly a lot of evidence cannot be presented in front of a jury. I would prefer to see a system which is more widely drawn. That is why I supported the Government on the previous two amendments.

Initially, we need a system that probably allows more evidence to be presented to juries. We will filter it down, as we did with common law, into something that is sensible later. If we have a rigid, rule-based system on day one which does not allow anything to be presented to juries, they will become even more frustrated. In one case where I sat as a juror, the judge became so fed up with us passing notes and asking questions that he had to tell us to stop and try the case on the evidence presented by two adversarial lawyers who I did not think were doing a very good job; and nor did the jury.