Re: OT: Now it's trial by jury for the axe
- From: John Briggs <john.briggs4@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:12:44 +0000
On 20/01/2012 16:14, Mike Burke wrote:
On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:56:16 -0800 (PST), Dave in Toronto
<dmatthews03@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 19, 6:27 pm, Mike Burke<mbu...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/11987/
Yet another straw in what is becoming a howling gale.
It's amazing how debased the thinking on these issues has become in
recent decades. Reason has been trumped by emotion just about
everywhere.
Mique
There are many democratic countries that have non-jury legal
systems. Could be wrong but I believe Holland and many Scandinavian
countries have non-jury systems. Seems to work quite well.
Yes, but as far as I'm aware they have always had entirely different
systems. It's not that we don't already have non-jury trials in some
circumstances here in Australia, but apart from summary hearings by
magistrates in relatively minor cases, in the Supreme and District
Courts of New South Wales (and most if not all other states, AFAIK),
criminal trials for indictable offences are normally by jury. The
accused may elect to be tried by judge alone for a State offence, but
not for an indictable offence against the Commonwealth, since s 80 of
the Constitution requires this be tried by jury. The presumption in
civil proceedings is that they will be tried without a jury unless the
interests of justice otherwise require.
I'm talking entirely about the British system of justice and its
descendants, where the right to trial by jury in serious cases
involving the possibility of a jail sentence in excess of 12 months
has been long established - back at least to the 14th century. In the
early colonial times when Australia was a penal colony, there was no
right to trial by jury, but it was well established in the states by
Federation and guaranteed by s80 of the Oz constitution for indictable
offences against the Commonwealth.
My criticism is that the motivation for denying the accused trial by
jury seems to be based on the modern belief that "victims" are somehow
being denied justice when juries fail to convict. Or that somehow
trial by judges alone would be more efficient, or "cost effective".
Back in the day, crimes were seen to be offences against society - the
King's "peace" - and not primarily as offences against the victim.
Obviously, the nature of the crime, and the degree of injury to the
victim(s) determined the severity of the offence and of the charges to
be laid, but it was the crime against the "peace", or society as a
whole, that was being punished. The victim was pretty much
incidental, and the victims' families pretty much irrelevant.
But the media has turned such criminal cases into circuses, rounding
up mother and father, sisters and brothers and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and
all to stand in front of TV cameras and emote ad infinitum and ad
nauseam. So politicians are taking the line of least resistance.
Mique
(Lawyers feel free to correct my misapprehensions.)
I've never been in favour of abolishing trial by jury, but seeing that both Mique and Spiked are against it, I realise that there must be merits to the proposal that I have previously overlooked.
--
John Briggs
.
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