LORD JUDGE AND JURIES

 

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 21. Nov. 2010. – 12:46:16

There has been much attention paid to Lord Judge, Lord Chief Justice and the judiciary`s main man. This is as it should be. And when he comments on the jury system everybody listens and that also is how it should be. But critical comment has been………… pianissimo.

The good lord has explained his discomfort in that jurors might seek further knowledge from outside the courtroom when considering facts pertaining to a case. In other words they might seek to increase their knowledge by the common man`s most accessible source of information……the internet……. which might offer many things but in general terms is an enormous fantasamagorical library with an indexing system easy enough for Joe Blogs to find in seconds eg the Italian musical term for playing softly. But in the good old days only toffs and so called intellectuals had shelves full of books which contained information that was or could be useful for or of interest to them. Of course in those days old or good most such folk declined to serve on juries; they were too busy or considered themselves too important to judge their fellow man. Now that`s all changed and everybody……..or is anybody a better description?……..can be chosen for jury service. And that`s the point. There is no consideration of anybody`s intelligence or ability to follow the performance, to appreciate the hurdle “beyond reasonable doubt”, no test to ascertain the limits of anybody`s understanding of the English language or anybody`s capability of balancing the credibility of witnesses or the facility for anybody to comprehend a judge`s summing up. Truly anybody can be a bit thick but then that`s why we have a jury of twelve people who can be anybody. Of course under current attitudes supposedly handed down from Magna Carta and modified for current times peer review by any other term is what determines a defendant`s guilt or innocence.

In effect the LCJ is complaining that ignorant jurors trying to fulfil their task are seeking knowledge outside the courtroom which others in their group might already possess by virtue of their education, profession, general or specific knowledge or quite simply a higher IQ. Universal jury service is now an outmoded concept and sooner or later a senior member of the judiciary, probably after retirement, will step into the public arena and say so. This is not to say I am advocating judge[s] only courts……I am against the practice of single District Judges acting in trials as both judge and jury. I am suggesting that the concept of juries now constituted is not an 11th commandment notwithstanding the recent paper Are Juries Fair? Another interesting paper taking a wide historical perspective is A Historical and Comparative Perspective on the Common Law Jury . More research should be undertaken into possible variations to ensure that justice is done and seen to be done lest another government with similar authoritarian tendencies as those which lurked in Downing Street from 1997 until May pulls up its drawbridge and judge[s] only trials risk becoming commonplace.

TRAINING OR INDOCTRINATION?

 

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 20. Nov. 2010. – 12:25:05

There has been recently a mayoral election in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. This east London area has been the first home for generations of immigrants to England. Huguenots, Irish, Jews, Bengalis and others have, over the centuries, brought the skills, knowledge, labour and vitality necessary for any country to continually re stock its gene pool both metaphorically and physiologically. In an area where once stood dozens of synagogues mosques are the preferred places where monotheistic religion is most widely observed. And naturally enough the majority of a population will gravitate in elections to sympathetic consideration of one of their own. Last month Lutfur Rahman was elected mayor amid what can be graciously described as a certain amount of controversy.

Whether or not this man is a fundamentalist Islamist sympathetically disposed towards peaceful initiatives that others would obtain by more direct action I know not. What is incontrovertible is that this incumbent is no Tory. He is a socialist by any other name and that philosophy if no other will be his underlying driving force. This is democracy. Courts are not democratic. Nobody elects our judges and magistrates. Police are not democratic. The Crown Prosecution Service is not democratic. These individuals and organisations are part of just one pillar holding up a system which allows the voters of Tower Hamlets and elsewhere to put whomsoever they please in the big chair at the head of the table. 

Under the auspices of the borough council is the “Tower Hamlets No Place for Hate Forum”; another organisation selecting a name as if in opposition to an implacable opposite number……..The Whatever Place for Hate.org. Be that as it may the Tower Hamlets lot have persuaded HMCS to provide “training in hate crime awareness” to magistrates at Thames Magistrates` Court. Not being involved in that court I know nothing of the detail but that does not prevent observations on the general principle being applied by HMCS.

The definition of what constitutes hate in the criminal law has expanded steadily in the last twenty years just as the term discrimination has expanded. From a state of affairs in the 1950s where the doors of bed and breakfast establishments in now fashionable Notting Hill could be daubed with crude signs, “No dogs, no Irish, no blacks” to situations where in addition to sexual orientation, race, skin colour, religion, marriage status, a tendency to become pregnant, weight, height, etc could be construed as criminal discrimination “hate” is the word of choice to describe transgressors by those in Tower Hamlets and elsewhere. Elsewhere could be said to include another east London area; Barking or it could include Stoke. Both these areas have the British National Party as a small but not insignificant first choice for voters. The B.N.P. is just the latest in a long line of quasi fascist groups with nazi tendencies which have existed here since before the second world war. But in the unlikely event of this disgusting apology for a political party gaining control of a town or borough council what would be the reaction if an offshoot with its own camouflage of respectability provided a recommendation to its local court for there to be awareness training on the over sympathetic application of discriminatory legislation in the application of the law? 

There is in my opinion no clear demarcation between magistrates` awareness of what constitutes discrimination and what constitutes the application of law in that respect. There are those legally qualified who would opine that the term “bloody foreigner” is enough to add “racially aggravated” to a charge. I disagree. Magistrates who choose to attend such courses as described and act upon the political motivations of those propagating such views should consider very carefully whether or not they can still do justice according to their oath of office.

THE TALE OF CONAN THE DAMAGER

 

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 19. Nov. 2010. – 05:29:49

Since I was appointed, only when my court sittings have been exceptionally interesting for one reason or another have I kept personal notes of events. Sometimes it`s the typical and sometimes the atypical events which trigger a memory of a sitting that at the time I did not or forgot to note. Earlier this week a witness swore whilst giving evidence. That doesn`t happen often but it was the trigger, which Hercule Poirot might have said, fired the little grey cells. The tale follows.

It was a an apparently simple case of criminal damage and an offence under sect V Public Order Act. Conan {Gender: Masculine Usage: Irish Means "little wolf" or "little hound" from Gaelic cú "wolf, hound" combined with a diminutive suffix. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the author who wrote the Sherlock Holmes mystery stories.} was built like Arnold`s first cinematic creation but wasn`t a destroyer although he was a damager having had had a previous conviction for using his spray paint where he shouldn`t have. This time he had been caught in the act by a PCSO and a P.C. He was as expected unrepresented but at about twenty three years old he seemed able to express himself verbally in front of us in his educated Dublin accent as well as he had artistically in front of a wall. He had pleaded guilty [which of course we did not initially know at the time] to the criminal damage previously but denied the sect V.

The PCSO duly gave evidence of taking the spray paint can from Conan`s hand after a bit of resistance and that the accompanying P.C. made the arrest. And then he surprised all except the defendant and the prosecutor by quoting what was said at this stage in the arrest by the P.C. “Hand over the fucking paint to my PCSO or I`ll fucking have you on assault as well you fucking can of shit!” At this point the PCSO told the court that the defendant had started shouting “Gestapo” to attract attention from the few people nearby who had “slowed their steps to watch”. The defendant did not have much to cross examine; he agreed largely with what had been said but asked if the PCSO did not think it reasonable for him to have shouted causing the very minor disturbance considering the words of the P.C. The PCSO did not think it reasonable. On his behalf our legal adviser asked the PCSO if the P.C.`s words were in his [PCSO] statement and received confirmation. P.C. Johnson would not have been selected for Robert Peel`s first force of “Peelers”. He was about five foot five and seemed years from becoming a customer for Gilette. CPS duly took him through the incident including the swearing and [he had recorded his own words in his own notebook] when asked why he had used such language told us that he was concerned for their safety and wanted to emphasis to such a large offender that he, P.C. Johnson, was in charge and he had the power and authority; not an offender the size of a heavyweight boxer. He denied, when questioned, considering both at the time and now on reflection that his swearing could have exacerbated the situation.

After hearing from the defendant who gave the impression he almost considered himself Banksy`s apprentice it took us a short time only to decide that Conan was not guilty of causing harassment alarm or distress by his words or behaviour. He was fined at the level of one week`s wages plus compensation, costs etc for criminal damage with the usual allowance for an early guilty plea. Our pronouncement, included in the court file, made clear mention of what we thought about the diminutive P.C.`s manner when conducting an arrest.