§ Mr. Greenwayasked the Attorney-General if he will make it his policy, in all future cases to be tried by jury, to instruct Crown counsel to object to the empanelment of any juror known to have political affiliations which in his opinion could call in question the ability of that juror to reach an objective verdict on the basis of the evidence.
§ The Attorney-GeneralIt is not open to counsel to challenge a prospective juror before he is empanelled. The occasion for making such a challenge arises only at the point where persons who are already on the panel and have been selected by ballot to try a particular case come forward to be sworn for that purpose. I assume that this is what my hon. Friend intended to refer to.
If any facts are known to prosecuting counsel which lead him to doubt the impartiality of a particular juror, he may then ask that juror to stand by for the Crown. If this leaves an insufficient number of persons to constitute the jury on the panel that has been summoned, counsel may then challenge the juror for cause. Whether that challenge is well-founded and should therefore be upheld will be decided by the trial judge.
A juror's political affiliations would not, in themselves, constitute a ground for asking him to stand by or for challenging him for cause unless, in the words of the guidelines on jury checks, which I published in July 1980 and a copy of which is in the Library of the House, his 327W
'political beliefs are so biased as to go beyond normally reflecting the broad spectrum of views and interests in the community to reflect the extreme views of sectarian interest or pressure group to a degree which might interfere with his fair assessment of the facts of the case or lead him to exert improper pressure on his fellow jurors.'The jury checks which are authorised by the guidelines are limited in scope and would not be expected to disclose political affiliations which were not of the extreme character that I have just described.