Monday 11 January 2010

Questions In CiF...

...to which the answer is 'Yes':
Trial by jury: is an ancient right being diluted to save money?
Once upon a time, a paper like the 'Guardian' wouldn't have needed to even ask that question. Would it?

5 comments:

North Northwester said...

Nor would real liberals have had any hesitation in condemning it.
How complete is Gramsci & Co's victory.

Angry Exile said...

To save money? Frankly I doubt it. Why would they want to save it by slightly reducing the costs of a trial, or even a dozen or a hundred trials. It's like helping a drowning victim by taking a glass of water out of the lake - technically a step in the right direction but meaninglessly small and impossible to do enough to make a real difference. This isn't about saving money, which they could simply get back from the taxpayer in any event. This is about improving the odds of a conviction by eliminating any chance that more than three people aren't convinced by the CPS case.

Anonymous said...

Jury trial is not being diluted to save money. It is being diluted to introduce corpus juris.

Under common law, the role of juries is not just to ensure that application of the law is just but to ensure that the law itself is just.

Common law is all we have in our defence against an over-powerful executive. We owe it to ourselves to become familiar with it, before it disappears from our lives forever.

JuliaM said...

"Nor would real liberals have had any hesitation in condemning it."

Indeed...

"This isn't about saving money, which they could simply get back from the taxpayer in any event. This is about improving the odds of a conviction by eliminating any chance that more than three people aren't convinced by the CPS case."

Good point.

"Common law is all we have in our defence against an over-powerful executive. We owe it to ourselves to become familiar with it, before it disappears from our lives forever."

And I don't think we can look to CallMeDave to reverse this trend, can we?

Angry Exile said...

And I don't think we can look to CallMeDave to reverse this trend, can we?

Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Ahahahahahahaha.
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

No.