UK Law Articles
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The Times
June 12 2000
You the jury . . . yes, that means you
BY FRANCES GIBB, LEGAL EDITOR
PLANS to stop middle-class professionals getting out of jury service by creating an American-style compulsory jury system will emerge from a radical review of the criminal justice system.
The idea of a new stricter duty on citizens to do jury service, coupled with reforms so that jurors do not waste so much time hanging around court, are expected to be recommended in the current review under Lord Justice Auld. He was appointed last year by the Lord Chancellor to inquire into the criminal justice system and is expected to report by the end of this year.
The proposals to reform jury service are one of the first to emerge from what will be a no-holds-barred look at how criminal justice can be improved.
There is concern that with large numbers of people, often middle-class professionals, able to find excuses to dodge jury service, juries are often unrepresentative. In long trials in particular, juries can be dominated by housewives or the unemployed.
The reforms under discussion include a much stricter duty on people to do jury service, reinforced by penalties for not doing so, but with choice about when they want sit, to fit in with personal arrangements. Another idea is to give jurors pagers, so that they do not have to spend time in the court precincts waiting to be called.
In long fraud trials, it is being suggested that courts might sit only in the morning, freeing jurors in the afternoon when legal argument "in the absence of the jury" could take place. This practice was successfully adopted in the trial of the Maxwell brothers and saved jurors from being constantly called in and out of court.
Fourthly, as in the United States, extra jurors could be sworn in who would sit alongside the panel of 12. If one of the panel droppped out, there would be a replacement. Long trials have sometimes been at risk of being halted if a couple of jurors fall ill.
A quarter of a million people every year are summoned for jury service. Home Office research has found that two thirds get out of it. A study looked at 50,000 jurors called over a six-week period. More than 66 per cent were excused, were ineligible (for instance because of criminal convictions) or exempt, such as doctors, dentists, MPs, servicemen, lawyers or police officers.
Of the 38 per cent excused, nearly half said it was because of a medical condition and 20 per cent said they were looking after children or elderly relatives. Another 23 per cent said that they could not afford time off or their employers could not give it to them.
Trevor Groves, author of the book The Juryman's Tale, relates how when he told friends he was doing jury service, he was inundated with advice on how to get off, "ranging from booking an instant skiing holiday to wearing a suit and carrying The Daily Telegraph."
By contrast in America jury service is virtually compulsory, even for lawyers. Before the property qualification in Britain was abolished in 1972 and the lower age limit dropped to 18, juries were seen as too middle-aged and middle-class, he said. "Now, as any policeman will tell you, they are widely seen as being not nearly middling enough."
Bruce Houlder, QC, deputy chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said: "There is a problem with those in high-powered jobs. The successful seem to find ways of getting off jury service - it's a reflection of the pressures of modern living and bosses being more demanding."
He welcomed the idea of a more clear-cut statutory duty" to do jury service. The Bar and Criminal Bar Association were also calling for jury pagers and the use of "Maxwell hours".
