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Telegraph | Opinion | Juries weighed in the balance and found wanting:

“The collapse of the Jubilee Line corruption trial shows how disastrously wrong jury trials can go when they are badly handled. It should not, though, be used as a stick with which to beat all jury trials, when it comes to the inquiry into the trial that has been ordered by the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith.

This Government has shown itself all too keen on restricting trial by jury and, in its introduction of control orders, by judges, too. In the face of an administration with a devil-may-care attitude to civil liberties, juries are a vital buffer between executive and subject.“

So starts this opinion piece in the Telegraph I find it surprising therefore that the Telegraph then goes on to suggest implementing some of the recommendations in the Auld Report.

“In place of a jury, one could have any of the four replacements suggested by Lord Justice Auld in his 2000 review of the criminal courts: trial by a panel of judges; by a judge alone; by specialist juries; or by a tribunal of judges with two expert assessors. All methods would be quicker and cheaper, with the added bonus that judges, unlike juries, would give reasons for their decision.”

The Telegraph argues that “Selection of particular types of cases for jury trial is nothing new. After all, the vast majority of criminal cases are heard by magistrates without a jury already”. But forgets to mention that this is an elective process on the part of the accused, who can if they wish elect instead to be heard by a judge and jury. Auld also attacked this concept, arguing that although it was a basic right to have a trial by jury, it was not a basic right of the accused to choose which type of court should hear the case and this decision should be made by judges. The obvious flaw in that argument is that if the judges decide that a case should be heard by a different system, that will have removed the basic right to a trial by jury.

The, according to the Telegraph “added bonus that judges, unlike juries, would give reasons for their decision” is the very basis of our protection when the Telegraph says “juries are a vital buffer between executive and subject” that, only works because under our present system juries can find against a law they feel is unjust. Simply by refusing to convict, they act as a vital back stop which works as the peoples final right to defend their own liberty against an overpowering executive. No arguments by either the judges, government or in this case the Telegraph, has answered that particular point, to remove the power of the jury to refuse to convict against the evidence, removes the very reason for trial by jury in the first place, without that right we will be left with no protection from the state and a jury system that is no more than an meaningless charade.

The answer might be to place the jury at the centre of the system rather than being an inconvenient impediment to the legal professionals desires to conduct their law in their way.