Quality | 2010.02.20
Letters: Judgment reserved on jury trials
While the research into jury trials is welcome, the report by Professor Cheryl Thomas does not answer (nor purport to answer) the crucial question: whether our system of trial by jury for serious crimes produces a quality of criminal justice as good, if not better, than would a wholly professional system. Your editorial ( Jury trial: Case dismissed , 18 February 2010) is absurdly dismissive of the Diplock courts. Trial by judge alone in terrorist trials in Northern Ireland from the mid-1970s onwards worked extremely well. One reason for public recognition of the Diplock courts in the Northern Ireland crown court was that the trial judge was obliged to give a fully reasoned judgment for the verdict, which meant it was possible for there to be a fully appellate review.
The absence of a reasoned judgment from the English jury is arguably non-compliant with article 6 of the European convention on human rights. There are not and should not be any "efforts to undermine the jury system", which incidentally is not derived from Magna Carta; merely a continuing debate about the jury as a mode of trial suitable for the 21st century. On that issue, the jury is still out. The case against the jury is not dismissed. Judgment reserved.
Louis Blom-Cooper QC
London
• In the case of Private Clegg, convicted of murdering a teenager travelling in a stolen car in 1993, the written verdict enabled his lawyers to "unpick" the flawed evidence upon which his conviction was based. He was finally acquitted of murder after a retrial in 1999. A juryless trial is never an ideal solution, but some balanced measures are required where the threat of jury intimidation is so great so as to undermine criminal justice.
Simon McKay
Solicitor-advocate, Leeds (represented Private Clegg in his appeal and retrial)
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/[...]dgment-reserved-on-jury-trials
