I understand the main argument for reducing the number of cases tried by jury: they take longer and are significantly more expensive (‘A move towards an authoritarian state’: what those with trial experience think of removing juries, 7 December). But two further points deserve emphasis.
First, most countries do not use juries. We are one of very few European nations that still do. During the imperial period we exported our system widely, yet even some former colonies have since abandoned it. The main countries retaining juries are the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. To insist that juries are essential to justice is, implicitly, to claim that the many modern democracies that do without them operate inadequate systems.
Second – and more importantly – the jury system conflicts with a fundamental principle of justice: that important decisions must be accompanied by reasons. Parties are entitled to know why a decision has been reached, and appellate courts can only review a decision by examining whether its reasons are legally sound and supported by the evidence. Juries alone deliver the most serious outcomes in our system while giving no reasons at all. Their decisions may be correct – or entirely mistaken – but we have no way of knowing. As a result, criminal appeals become artificial exercises focused on the judge’s conduct or directions, not on the reasoning behind the verdict itself. Some say the age of the jury system is its justification. But we have abandoned most medieval practices for good reason.
None of this means replacing juries should be done lightly. There are valid concerns about leaving such decisions to a single judge, even one who must give reasons. We should consider panels that include multiple judges, lawyers, specialists or trained lay members, as is already done in magistrates courts, tribunals and many countries without juries. Such models guard against individual bias and provide expertise in complex cases. We should not reject reform. We should refine it.
Michael Harris
Retired judge, London
• As somebody who has been called to jury service twice in the last 10 years, I want to challenge the somewhat rose-tinted view set out in your editorial (2 December).
Out of a total of 20 days, I actually spent 3.5 days in court. The rest was spent either in the court waiting area or at home while cases were delayed due to late legal challenges, failure of witnesses to appear and, most memorably, a juror being ill one day. The next day, the judge decided to halt the trial because not all jury members were available for the delayed time period, so the case had to be started all over again, with a different jury, the following week.
The only case I did see was regarding a punch-up in a pizza delivery shop over a delayed order. All dreadfully inefficient, both in terms of cost and time.
Christian Mole
Chislehurst, London
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