Juries face axe in fraud trials - Democratic Underground

tjwmason

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Tue Jun-21-05 01:53 PM
Original message

Juries face axe in fraud trials

Judges would sit without a jury in serious and complex fraud trials under government plans to be voted on by MPs and peers later this year.

Attorney General Lord Goldsmith suggested the measure would be used to handle between 15 and 20 cases in England and Wales each year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4113296.stm

What think ye?

One comment on the article was telling:

Juries were well able to understand fraud cases because they were almost always a simple case of deciding whether or not somebody had been dishonest, he < The chairman of the Criminal Bar Association > said.

Is there something more insidious behind this than the standard 'modernisation' and 'efficiency' which are used to trumpet every new grand-plan from faux Labour?

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bennywhale

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Tue Jun-21-05 02:50 PM
Response to Original message

1. New Labour change the law

relating to our fundamental rights daily.

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Nihil

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Wed Jun-22-05 05:06 AM
Response to Original message

2. The concept of a sole judge is "good"?

Given that past cases have shown how out of touch senior judges are
with the real world (i.e., outside chambers and rarified social events),
exactly *how* are they supposed to understand "complex financial cases"
better than twelve ordinary citizens?

If there have been concerns about "juror bias" then how much more
critical is it when the bias is 100% rather than 1/12?

The most telling point in this one (to me) was the original suggestion
that the cases would be judged by "a few financial experts" ...
Looks like this was too blatant even for the opposition politicians
this time.

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Vladimir

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Wed Jun-22-05 10:02 AM
Response to Original message

3. I think this is the old 'they are too stupid to understand'

argument - well they might be, but at least they aren't too corrupt to do justice, unlike Lord Hutton (for example) and other such luminaries of the justice system.

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LeftishBrit

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Wed Jun-22-05 01:05 PM
Response to Original message

4. Oh great...

Shades of the early 19th century, when the 'common people' were considered too ignorant and unintelligent to be entrusted with the vote!

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tjwmason

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Thu Jun-23-05 03:05 AM
Response to Reply #4

5. That'll be coming round soon.

But it's okay, everything will be decided by focus groups - so we'll all be saved the bother of voting - after all it's terribly tiresome to have to walk a few hundred yards to a polling station before puting a cross in a box.

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Thu May 02nd 2024, 12:48 AM
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