Role of Magistrate and Jurors in the Legal Decision-Making Process - Essay Example

? Discuss the Role of Magistrate and Jurors in the Legal Decision-Making Process of Discuss the Role of Magistrate and Jurors in the Legal Decision-Making Process Question 1 Essay Plan Essay Topic: Discuss the Role of Magistrate and Jurors in the Legal Decision-Making Process Essay Length: 2,000 words Introduction Briefly describe the magistrates and jurors within the legal system. Outline the processes involved within court trial. Argument of the essay- the magistrates and jurors play a very critical role in the legal decision-making process. Discussion Consider the advantages of the services provided by the magistrates and jurors in the legal decision- making. Consider the disadvantages of the services that the magistrates and jurors provide in the legal decision-making. The contribution of magistrates and jurors to the legal decision-making will be assessed based on the consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the services they provide in the legal decision-making. Courts and Legal Services Act 1990- includes provisions on appointments of District Judges and the courts’ procedure, specifically in respect to distribution of civil business between the County Courts and High Court. The Contempt of Court Act 1981- states that disclosure of anything that took place in the jury room amounts to a contempt of court and is therefore a criminal offence. Juries Act 1974- consolidates particular enactments relating to jury service, jurors, and juries with improvements and corrections made under the Consolidation of Enactments Act 1949. The Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007- contains fundamental legal procedures and courts’ structure Condron v UK (2001) 31 EHRR 1- provides an example of how magistrates and jurors legal decision-making process can lead to breach of human rights. Hurst v Leeming [2002] EWHC 1051- shows that the verdict can be made for wrong reasons and motives R v Mattan [1998] Times- it is a good example of how intense media coverage of the case can make it impossible for the case to receive fair trial R v R [1991] 4 AII ER 481- provides a good example of how magistrates and jurors can undermine relevant legislations Conclusion and Assessment Do the magistrates and jurors play a very critical role in the legal decision-making process? Summary of the arguments that point out that, indeed, the magistrates and jurors play a very critical role in the legal decision-making process. Question 2 Introduction The magistrates and jurors play a very important role in the resolution of both criminal and civil cases (Elliott and Frances, 2008, p. 12). For over 1000 years, jurors have formed a fundamental part of the English Legal System and have played very important role in the legal matters’ resolution for many centuries (Slapper and David, 2001, p. 35). Similarly, magistrates have also been playing a very instrumental role in resolving criminal and civil cases and have in recent years become extensively important in many of the cases in the English Legal System. The jurors form a jury an arrangement that is made up of a specific number of ordinary individuals who are called for service on any legal matter (Forsterlee & Horowitz, 1997, p. 307). Jurors’ main role is to bring their perspective to a case as lay person with no knowledge of law. Jurors combine their common sense, wisdom, and experience to decide the facts relating to a particular case in order to reach a verdict (Cownie et al, 2007, p. 51). It is worth noting that jurors simply decide the verdict and not the law; the jury decides the question of the defendant guilt while the judge decides on the point of law. In respect to magistrates, they are local people volunteering their services. Magistrates do not have formal legal qualifications and are chosen based on their local knowledge. They sit in the magistrates’ court as a bench of two or three magistrates (Sanders and Young, 2004, p. 97). The court trial involves several processes. The initial process within the court trial involves the defendant pleading guilty or not after the court clerk has read out the offence. If the defendant pleads guilty, he or she is sentenced by the court and there is no trial. In such a case, the court decide if it has power to sentence the defendant; if it does not have it sends the case to a higher court. If the defendant does not plead guilty, subsequent trial processes follow (Fafinski, & Finch, 2009, p. 44). After the defendant has pleaded guilty, the jury is sworn in; they promise to carefully listen to the case and give a fair verdict. The next process is that which requires the prosecution to bring evidence against the defendant and prove beyond reasonable doubt that, indeed, the defendant committed the alleged crime or offence. It is not upon the defendant to prove that he did not commit the alleged offence as he is presumed to be innocent by the court until proved guilty (Slapper, 2011, p. 60). This process involves proving of certain elements of the evidence as different offences have different elements that must be proved. Thereafter, the defendant or his attorney can argue against the prosecutor’s evidence and give the defendant’s evidence. At the end, the jury makes its decision regarding the case; one of the jury members tells the court whether the defendant is guilty or not (Weinstock, & Flaton, 2004, p. 202). Over the years, there have been arguments on whether the magistrates and jurors play a very critical role in the legal decision-making process. In order to assess the contribution of the services of magistrates and jurors to the legal decision-making process, this essay will evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the services that they provide. Advantages One of the key advantages that have been cited in regard to the services provided by the magistrates and jurors is that they promote public confidence. It has been argued that since most of the magistrates and jurors have no legal knowledge, they tend to be completely independent of the UK’s legal system (Open University, 2012, p. 18). Besides, they are viewed as a stamp of a democratic society since their process of making decisions in court is based on majority verdicts and unanimity, which is likely to greatly appeal to the public. The method used by the magistrates and jurors are perceived by the public to be impartial, just, and fair as required by the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990. Secondly, their services are perceived to promote legal equity (also known as jury equity). The fact that they are not legal experts implies that they will not be capable of giving verdicts that are based on legal facts and also they are not bound by the legislations or precedents (Daftary-Kapur, Dumas, & Penrod, 2010, p. 136). In nearly, if not all cases, legal experts including the judges tend to base their verdicts on the legal facts, Acts or Statutes. While such facts may be deemed legally right, they sometimes lead to absurd rulings which seem unfair. Magistrates and jurors help to avoid such absurd rulings thereby promoting legal equity and the most efficient justice (McConville and Wilson, 2002, p. 55). Moreover, secrecy has been said to be the other advantage of services provided by the magistrates and jurors. Most, if not all deliberations done by the jury is done in secret room only entered by the jury members and no inquiry can be made regarding how the jury arrived at their decision. The Contempt of Court Act 1981 states that disclosure of anything that took place in the jury room amounts to a contempt of court and is therefore a criminal offence (Harris, 2002, p. 43). This Act prohibits obtaining, soliciting or disclosing any statements made, arguments advanced, votes cast or opinions expressed by jury members in the course of their decision-making process in a given legal proceedings. Also, this provision allows the jurors to ignore law’s strict line (Farrar and Dugdale, 2002, p. 94). Besides, the secrecy aspect has made more people to be more willing to serve in the jury since they are assured that their discussions would not be made public. Fundamentally, the secrecy aspect in the services provided by the magistrates and jurors protects the jurors from external influences and protects jury members’ vote therefore protecting the verdict. This is a crucial aspect in administration of justice (Ashworth, 2003, p. 61). Furthermore, impartiality has been cited as one of the most prominent advantage of the services provided by the magistrates and jurors. The Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 requires that the court must be totally impartial at all times of deliberating on the verdict of a given case. It has been argued that the fact that the jurors are not involved in the case and the fact that they do not know the people involved increases the impartiality of their decisions (Haralambous, 2007, p. 521). Impartiality is further enhanced by the random selection of the jurors; jurors are selected through a random selection process which increases their impartiality levels. Impartiality is more ensured in the legal decision-making of magistrates and jurors by the fact that none of them is held responsible for the decision that they make as the decisions made are collective from all the members involved (Richard, A, 1998, p. 66). Another advantage that has been associated with legal decision-making by the magistrates and jurors is that it is a reflection and practice of open system of justice. The use of magistrates and jurors are generally viewed as making the system of justice more open as required by Juries Act 1974 (Hans, 2003, p. 87). They are lay and ordinary people of the public and their decisions seem to be fair and open to the public. If some of the legal decisions arrived by the magistrates and jurors are to be left to a single judge, the verdict may seem unfair not only to the offender, but also to the public. The open justice system perpetuated by magistrates and jurors helps to keep the law clearer as the legal points are explained to the jury therefore enabling the defendant to easily understand. Also, since the decisions by the magistrates and jurors are highly publicized, the ethos of open justice system is enforced (Cownie et al, 2007, p. 111). Disadvantages The services provided by magistrates and jurors in the legal decision-making have been criticized for compromising the administration of justice in some cases. The critics argue that even though the magistrates and jurors ignore laws that they feel are unfair and unjust, they can sometimes result to perverse decisions (Weinstock & Flaton, 2004, p. 194). It has also been argued that the decisions by magistrates and jurors undermine the relevant legislation because they sometimes make the point that the legislation is ineffective and may cause unfair and unjust result if rigidly applied. The case of R v R [1991] 4 AII ER 481 provides a good example of how magistrates and jurors can undermine relevant legislations by pointing out that rigid application of relevant legislation would lead to unfair and unjust decisions (Fafinski & Finch, 2009, p. 107). In this case, the defendant was charged with helping a prisoner escape from prison but the jury acquitted him because of the difference of time between the time of escape and actual prosecution. Additionally, critics have pointed out that the publicity of cases handled by the magistrates and jurors especially through high media coverage often influence their decision-making processes. For example in the case of R v Mattan [1998] Times, the media coverage of the case was very intense and it was appealed that the media coverage was very intense and that it made it impossible for the case to receive fair trial (Harris, P, 2002, p. 122). The courts have tried to make sure that publicity of a case does not compromise fair trial by informing the jurors to be careful regarding any coverage of the case they are handling (Sanders and Young, 2004, p. 79). Critics have also argued that secrecy advantage on the services provided by magistrates and jurors may actually be a disadvantage. Based on the case of Hurst v Leeming [2002] EWHC 1051, they argue that since the verdict is conducted in secrecy, the public do not know how the decision came about; as such, the verdict may have been made for wrong reasons and motives (Daftary-Kapur, Dumas & Penrod, 2010, p. 149). One of the most important cited disadvantages of the services provided by the magistrates and jurors is in regard to impartiality. Whereas the critics agree that the magistrates and jurors are required to be impartial and are actually likely to be impartial in majority of the cases, there is still a likelihood of certain types of prejudice which may ultimately affect the fairness of the decisions they make (Kelly and Slapper, 2006, p. 176). In the case of Condron v UK (2001) 31 EHRR 1, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights had been breached (Hans, 2003, p. 90). This is after one of the jurors wrote a note to the judge during trial indicating that some of the jury members made open racist remarks. It has further been argued that the whole process of legal decision-making by magistrates and jurors is costly especially in civil cases. Assessment It is evidently clear that magistrates and jurors have been instrumental in resolving criminal and civil cases within the English Legal System. Their services have been in existence for a very long period of time and have actually been the cornerstone of legal decision-making process within the legal system. As it can be noted, their services in legal decision-making process has both advantages and disadvantages, which has led to the question of whether the magistrates and jurors play a very critical role in the legal decision-making process. In my opinion, they do play very critical role in the legal decision-making process. The advantages of the services they provide outweigh the disadvantages. Enhanced public confidence, equity, secrecy, open justice system, and impartiality are the advantages that have endeared their services in the English Legal System and have won the approval of the majority people served by the system. That notwithstanding, it is important that ways be sought of ironing out some of the disadvantages to ensure that justice and fairness is achieved at all times. Bibliography Ashworth, A, 2003, Principles of Common Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cownie, F et al, 2007, English legal system in context, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. Daftary-Kapur, T, Dumas, R, & Penrod, S 2010, 'Jury decision-making biases and methods to counter them', Legal & Criminological Psychology, 15, 1, pp. 133-154 Elliott, C and Frances Q, 2008, English Legal System, Edinburgh: Pearson Education Limited. Fafinski, S., & Finch, E, 2009, English legal system: Stefan Fafinski, Emily Finch.,Harlow, England, Pearson Education Ltd. Farrar, H and Dugdale, M, 2002, Introduction to Legal Method, Sweet & Maxwell. Forsterlee, L, & Horowitz, I 1997, 'Enhancing Juror Competence in a Complex Trial', Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11, 4, pp. 305-319 Hans, VP 2003, 'Introduction: Lay Participation in Legal Decision Making', Law & Policy, 25, 2, pp. 83-92, Haralambous, N 2007, 'Juries and Extraneous Material: A Question of Integrity', Journal Of Criminal Law, 71, 6, pp. 520-533 Harris, P, 2002, An Introduction to Law, Cambridge University Press. Kelly, D and Slapper, G, 2006, English Law, Routledge. McConville, M and Wilson, G, 2002, The Handbook of the Criminal Justice Process, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Open University, 2012, Rules, rights and justice: an introduction to law, Available: https://css2.open.ac.uk/outis/Descs/Courses/W100.htm (Accessed: 20 June, 2012) Richard, A, 1998, The Making of the English Legal Profession, Beard Books. Sanders, A and Young, R, 2004, Criminal Justice, London: Butterworth. Slapper, Gary; David K, 2001, The English legal system, Routledge. Slapper, G, 2011, How the law works, London: Routledge. Weinstock, M, & Flaton, R 2004, 'Evidence coverage and argument skills: cognitive factors in a juror's verdict choice', Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 17, 3, pp. 191-212 Zander, M, 2007, Cases and Materials on the English Legal System, Cambridge University Press. Read More