Bruce Golding | Whither jury trials?

Some two decades ago, I received a summons for jury duty. My attorney pointed out to the Clerk of Courts that as a member of parliament I was exempt from jury service and the summons was withdrawn. In December 2015 when I was no longer a member of parliament I received another summons to serve as a juror at the Special Coroner’s Court at Sutton Street. It had to do with a coroner’s inquest into the death of Vanessa Wint, a ward of the state who was alleged to have committed suicide while in custody at the Horizon Adult Remand Centre.

I was advised by an attorney that I could seek to be excused and she was confident that it would be granted. I chose not to do so. I felt it was improper to use perceived “privilege” to shirk a duty that is imposed on every citizen.

The other jurors in their dubious wisdom selected me to be the foreman of the jury. The inquest involved 19 court dates lasting from December 2015 to June 2016. On some of these dates, hearings could not proceed for one reason or another.

I found the experience to be very instructive. As the Chief Justice has lamented, most of the jurors were typical “ordinary” Jamaicans with addresses below Cross Roads and Half-Way Tree. Yet, they were very intuitive, analytical and attentive to the evidence that was given. Our deliberations before rendering our verdict were painstaking and I came away with the feeling that we had done justice to our assignment.

Meals that were provided were not five-star but adequate. However, the process was not without its shortcomings. Apart from the frequent postponements, sittings invariably started late and the hearings were protracted because the magistrate had to record in handwriting every word of the testimonies that were given. I felt sorry for him but more so for the witnesses because when they were asked to resume their testimonies they sometimes had difficulty remembering where they had left off. Technology had not yet visited the coroner’s court.

MUCH THAT CAN BE DONE

If trial by our peers is considered a foundational principle as eminent legal minds like Paula Llewellyn and Bert Samuels argue, there seems to be much that can be done to make the process more efficient.

The voters’ list from which potential jurors are drawn and which now comprises over two million persons provides a rich source from which jurors can be harvested. Ways can be found to penetrate the gated communities in which many persons reside. Courts must be less amenable to spurious requests to be excused.

The stipend offered to jurors which was increased from $3,000 to $6,000 per day is hardly sufficient compensation for a middle-class person who has to forego his income-earning pursuits to sit on a jury and can only entice the poor to whom Chief Justice Bryan Sykes referred. This has led to the emergence of “professional” jurors. I know of a few unemployed persons who are constantly on jury duty because they can always be relied on to serve. There are creative ways that can be found to incentivise jury service.

It is good that the law was amended in 2015 to require employers to pay employees for the time away from work spent on jury duty but this is hardly any comfort to a self-employed person. How does $6,000 per day compare with the allowance paid to members of statutory boards for each meeting they attend? How equally if not more important is jury service to board meetings?

SPEED UP HEARINGS

Audio recording and transcribing of evidence would significantly speed up hearings resulting in more coherent testimonies, more timely instructions from the judges and fewer days that juries are required to sit. Scheduling can also be vastly improved. If it is known that a hearing cannot proceed on a scheduled day, a simple phone call or WhatsApp message to jurors to avoid turning up needlessly would avoid the inconvenience.

Jury service in Jamaica is mandatory and persons who have been summoned but fail or refuse to serve are liable to a fine of up to $10,000. In default of payment, such persons may be ordered to perform unpaid work for up to 360 hours. It is a more lenient punishment than, for example, failure to submit income tax returns which, in default of payment, can attract imprisonment for up to 12 months. How that unpaid work is to be supervised presents another conundrum.

The jury remains out as to whether jury trials should be abolished. Some countries like Germany and India have gone that route. Others like France have replaced it with a panel of judges rather than a single judge. I doubt that we have sufficient judges to consider that option.

As The Gleaner editorials have repeatedly urged, it is important that this issue be subjected to rigorous debate. Our justice system of which jury trials remain an integral part must not continue to be held hostage to our procrastination.

Bruce Golding is the former prime minister of Jamaica. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com