JURY VETTING (ABOLITION) (Hansard, 20 November 1979)

§ Mr. Alfred Dubs (Battersea, South)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the inspection by either party in a criminal case of the panel from which the jurors are drawn, and to make it illegal for either party to investigate or make enquiries of any jurors on the panel and to require the prosecution to prove in court their reasons for objecting to any juror. The Bill has three main aims. The first is to abolish the practice that has come to be called "jury vetting"; the second is to make it illegal for either the prosecution or the defence to investigate or make inquiries about individuals an a jury panel; the third is to require the prosecution to prove its reasons for objecting to any particular juror when the matter comes before the court.

The practice of jury vetting has been going on, largely in secret, for a number of years. It is worth drawing the attention of the House to the fact that in Scotland there is no such practice. We possibly have a good deal to learn from what goes on north of the border.

The practice came more to light about a year ago, when the then Attorney-General published guidelines to cover the practice, although it appeared that the guidelines, in one form or another, had been in existence for about the previous four years.

Under jury vetting the prosecution is given access to the panel of names from which the jury will be selected. In certain cases, the prosecution can then check with the Criminal Records Office, Special Branch files and even local CID files, the background of those whose names are on the panel. It might work as follows. Let us suppose that a prominent militant trade unionist was on trial in connection with an industrial dispute. In such an instance it would be possible for the prosecution to check on the list, on the assumption that any trade unionist who was on the panel from which the jury would be selected could be alleged to hold "extreme" views. The prosecution could then ensure that every trade unionist was removed from the panel before that case came to trial.

I am not saying that there has been an instance of precisely that sort, but 210 the problem with the whole procedure is its secrecy; we simply do not know. But it does not take an example like that to indicate what a reprehensible practice jury vetting is. Whatever is said to the contrary, it is bound to assist the prosecution more than it assists the defence, because, even if—as has more recently been established—the defence can have some access to the names, it does not have the resources or the facilities to carry out the sort of vetting that the prosecution carries out.

Secondly, the practice detracts entirely from the principle that a jury should be randomly selected. Thirdly, it impinges significantly on the civil liberties of jurors, who are obliged to perform a public service and who, unknown to themselves, may be forced to have their private lives scrutinised.

There was an instance quoted in the newspapers not long ago when a professor discovered that he had been found unacceptable by the prosecution. As he said, he regarded himself as eminently respectable. He added I am an old Etonian … I am not my idea of a long-haired anarchist and so on. Whatever the merits of that individual gentleman, he had every right to feel aggrieved that in performing a public duty he had been exposed in public, for reasons of which he knew nothing, and made to appear in some way a suspect person.

Lastly, the practice is reprehensible because it is carried out in secrecy. Excessive secrecy in relation to our system of criminal justice is not desirable, because it increases suspicion that all is not well with our system of criminal justice.

People may say "But surely we need some safeguards. What happens if one member of the jury is idiosyncratic, or maliciously inclined?" The answer is that, of course, there are safeguards.

First, we have majority verdicts. Ten out of 12 members of the jury are required to agree in order to bring in a verdict of guilty. Therefore, we allow for the odd idiosyncratic individual who might be a member of a jury panel.

Secondly, I suggest that when we come to the eligibility of jurors—that is, whether they are not qualified because, for example, they may have served five 211 years in gaol or in the last 10 years may have served three months or more in gaol; those will be disqualifications. At present, the police, who are mainly the prosecutors, check on such disqualifications. It would surely be preferable if the court officials were given the responsibility to check on disqualification. They could have access to the Criminal Records Office and make sure that nobody on a jury panel should not be there because he was disqualified under the statutes.

In the United States the procedures are quite different. Some of the arguments in favour of jury vetting take us nearer to the American system, where there is a very open procedure—the fact that it is open has merit—of challenging many of the jurors. Indeed, it becomes part of the practice of defence and prosecution to have many challenges and to try to achieve a jury composition that will be favourable to the client of the defence, or against the accused, if it is a prosecution challenge.

The result of those procedures is to go even further away from the random jury selection that has been a feature of the British jury system, and I do not believe that it would be desirable to move in the American direction.

Turning again to the British system, I am clearly not suggesting that we should take away the right of challenge of jurors in open court by the prosecution or by the defence. That is a safeguard. But I am suggesting that the prosecution, which in practice has an unlimited right to challenge jurors, without showing the reason, should now have to show the reason. That would be an additional safeguard, in 212 case the lists of potential jurors have got into the prosecution's hands. It would be a worthy safeguard, and should be part of the Bill.

The practice of jury vetting that has grown up has never been sanctioned by Parliament. It has been conducted in secrecy, to the detriment of justice, and it has done quite a lot to damage faith in our system of justice.

Talking about juries, Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England" attacked "secret machinations" which might "sap and undermine" the jury system.

I seek to introduce the Bill in order to improve our jury system and help to improve faith in our system of justice.