Question of Juries:

Describe how juries are used in the English legal system and discuss why juries are
sometimes described as ‘unfair’

Answer:
The question requires a discussion on how juries have been used in the English legal system
along with this we have to discuss why juries sometimes described as ‘unfair’. I am intending to
answer the question with the help of relevant case laws in order to convey my points strongly.
Firstly, I will describe the history of juries how this system was introduced and how it developed
with time then discuss why juries have been called unfair sometimes. This essay will clarify
whether this statement about jury is right or wrong.

The use of jury in common law of England has an old history. The use of ordinary citizens to
decide the fate of those individuals who are accused of a crime has a history of more than 2,000
years old, to Ancient Athens and Rome, the origin of modern jury is the foundation of England.
Furthermore, during the 13th century juries were used for criminal cases and Magna Carta
brought an end to trail by ordeal and a new concept was introduced that a person to be tried by
‘the lawful judgment of his peers’. In start, the role of juror was to contribute local knowledge
and information about the crime, rather than deciding guilt or innocence, however, by the 15 th
century the role of juries was changed and they evolved into decision-makers or deciders of
fate. The jury plays an important role in the English legal system, because it gives a sense that
criminal justice system is rendering its role in order to benefit the public, because it would
ensure a healthy environment where there will not be a power imbalance between rich and
poor.

The use of jury permits members of society, rather than the government or professional
judiciary, to determine whether an individual has performed an alleged crime. The use of juries
ensures the public confidence in the judiciary which is an important element of criminal law
system. The jury has been called as a democratic institution which reinforces the rule of law.
Trial by jury is highly valued in the UK by the ordinary citizen.

Before 1967, juries were required to deliver unanimous judgments and the trial will be stopped
if even one member from the jury gave a decision against the collective verdict. The good
demonstration of this concept can be witnessed in the film (Twelve Angry Men). If we describe
in simple words that if the jury could not reach on a unanimous verdict, the trial would start
again and this jury would be discharged. The aim behind the concept of majority verdicts was to
ensure that a single member of jury has not been bribed or intimidated to give a different
decision.
Prior to 1972, to be a juror a citizen had to be a property owner. This concept shows that
women and young citizens were being discarded to represent as jurors because statics suggests
that women and young people were less likely to own property than older men. However, the
Juries Act 1974 included the eligibility of the jury, which requires that a person who is 18 to 75
and should have been a resident of the UK for at least five years since their 13 th birthday can be
a member of the jury. People who are ‘disqualified’ may not serve as a juror under the Juries
Act 1974. A judge can also discharge a person from jury service if he believes that they lack the
ability to cope with the information required for the trial. The selection of Juries is random and
they are selected from the electoral register by the Jury Central Summoning Bureau. The idea of
random selection is to ensure that representative jury is the simplest.

Prior to April 2004, certain group of professionals, such as doctors, members of the legal
profession, police, and the judiciary were excluded to be the members of the jury service.
However, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 put an end to this exemption and now all eligible
citizens are expected to tackle jury service. This Criminal Justice Act attracted criticism in a way
that participation of certain professionals gave this understanding that the judiciary is creating a
sense of partiality. These concerns raised the issue that Article 6 of ECHR is being violated.

Every coin has two sides jury has also sides. One favours the jury system which are the key
points, however it also embraces criticism of critics who speak against jury on their grounds.
They mention that the jury system is not a total fair system and sometimes it may not perform
its functions of fairness and there are cases in the European Courts of Human Rights which have
stated that the steps of the jury have violated and breached the unbiased of the judiciary under
Article 6. The confidence of the public in the fairness of the criminal justice system is assumed
to be weakened if judges, jurors, and a large number of barristers and solicitors, are
predominantly white, it would promote unfairness because they are not representatives of the
diversity of the society. In the leading case of R v Ford, it was established that judges were
under no duty to empanel a multi-racial jury. The case involves a black defendant driving
recklessly, the trial judge rejected to empanel a multi-racial jury and the jury convicted him for
reckless driving. The accused appealed against his conviction on the ground that all the
members of the jury were white and he was not represented and concluded that it was not an
impartial jury.

There is another very important case where the diversity of the jury was in question. After the
implementation of HRA 1998, the issue of racial discrimination was raised again in the case of R
v Smith, a black defendant was convicted by an all-white jury on the grounds that he was
involved in a fight in a night club. On this decision he appealed against conviction to the Court
of Appeal, the defence lawyers argued that the decision given in the case of R v Ford was
incompatible with Article 6 of the ECHR. The defence requested the Court of Appeal to
announce that S.1 of the Juries Act 1974 is not compatible with the HRA 1998, but the Court of
Repeal rejected their argument. There was no provision for multi-racial juries to be empanelled,
in the reforms to the criminal justice system introduced by the Labour Government introduced.

In the case of Sander v UK, Kuldip Sander, was convicted of fraud and he was a British national
of Asian origin born in the UK. Trial judge receives a note by one of the jurors that letter
expressed the fears that other members of the jury, have made jokes and open racist remarks,
do not seem impartial. The judge read the note loudly in the open court to the jury and
informed them that they should stay impartial in the proceedings and give decision without
being biased. However, the jury found him guilty of the offence and sent a letter to trial judge
informing him that all the members of the jury were impartial and it was signed by the one as
well who initially complained against the jury. The defendant argued that he was convicted on
racial basis by a ‘racist jury’ and argued further that judge should have dismissed the jury. His
appeal against the conviction was rejected by the Court of Appeal, but the case was finally
heard by the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR declared that because of that “letter
any observer would doubt the jury hence it was concluded that there had been a violation of
Article 6 of the ECHR.”

The use of internet is also an problem it was demonstrated in the case of AG v Dallas, a juror,
Theodora Dallas, was given a six-months detention sentence for contempt of court. She was
given this sentence because during the trial she had researched the defendant on the internet,
who was accused of aggressive crime involving torture of the victim. When she was carrying out
her research about him on internet she found out that he had previously been convicted of a
rape involving rape. The jury was discharged by the judge because other jurors reported that
Dallas had discovered more about the defendant’s previous convictions. The Lord Chief Justice
held that “She did not obey the orders of judge and accessed the internet which had caused
prejudice to the administration of justice. Although, the discovered evidence was not adduced
in evidence but it might have played its part in her verdict. She prejudiced the administration of
justice at the time when she disclosed this information to her fellow jurors. In this whole process,
the time of other jurors was wasted, and additional unnecessary expense was inflicted on
public.” This shows how the administration to justice was damaged. In AG v Davey and AG v
Beard, the Dallas case was followed. In a combined judgment, the High Court found jurors are
in contempt of court. Davey carried out research about defendant on the internet while serving
as a juror, and in another trial, Beard while serving as a juror tweeted information about the
case concerning a pedophile. In the judgment of these cases, the court held that, “Judges did
try to warn them not to use the internet or any social networking sites that are related to the
case, but judges are not consistent in their language and it look like that jurors do not
understand instruction clearly of what is permitted and what is prohibited.”
In conclusion, it can be said that the jury system has been unfair at times, as the cases above
states that how a jury can be unfair. These reasons conclude that how jury can undermine the
legitimacy of the judiciary and how public confidence can be lost.