Jury Selection Disadvantages

Jury selection is laid down in the Juries Act 1994. While it is proven that there are reasonable alternatives to a jury trial and that there is no doubt that jury trial is both time consuming and expensive when compared with trial by magistrates or by a judge alone, however the right to a jury trial shall not be dismissed so lightly. The anti jury lobby deems the jury system unpopular the importance of which is considered only overrated. I will be critically analysing whether trial by jury should be abolished in the UK legal system plus evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of the system.

Lord Devlin was quoted as saying the jury system is "the lamp that shows that freedom lives". A Jury can decide cases on their idea of fairness, e.g. …show more content…
It is said that it is justifiable to have a disparity in the use of criminal and civil juries because in criminal cases, the result will decide someone 's future liberty and reputation, but in civil cases only money is at stake. However, this assumes that juries are somehow 'better ' that they are more likely to reach 'fair ' or 'correct ' decisions than properly trained judges. Evidence shows that this is not the case, and therefore, the role of the jury must be purely representative, a symbol that the law is not just locking …show more content…
Many people find jury service very tedious, and do not pay appropriate attention to their duties; this cannot be advantageous since they may not come to the proper decision. Is it sought-after that people who do not want to be doing jury service should be doing so? Juries do not include as many ethnic minorities as are present in the population as a whole because many are excluded for lack of language skills. Some jurors may be biased, e.g. against the police or racially prejudiced. See R v Gregory [1993](juror showing racial overtones) and research by Baldwin & McConville [1979]: doubt in 5% of cases by