Thu | Mar 28, 2024

Jury should stay out, says Tavares-Finson

Published:Wednesday | May 4, 2022 | 12:10 AMBarbara Gayle/Contributor
Tom Tavares-Finson.
Tom Tavares-Finson.

With the justice system currently facing a crisis after fewer than three per cent of the 4,500 prospective jurors summoned turned up for duty last Wednesday, Tom Tavares-Finson, QC, is calling for the abolition of jury trials so that criminal cases...

With the justice system currently facing a crisis after fewer than three per cent of the 4,500 prospective jurors summoned turned up for duty last Wednesday, Tom Tavares-Finson, QC, is calling for the abolition of jury trials so that criminal cases will be disposed of expeditiously.

Tavares-Finson made the call following a report in The Sunday Gleaner on the weekend over the state of affairs as jury trials were set to resume at circuit courts in Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine, Clarendon and St James.

“The COVID-19 experience has moved me from being sceptical about bench trials and the elimination of juries,” he told The Gleaner.

He pointed out that since the establishment of the Gun Court in 1974, single judges have been trying cases involving firearms with some offences carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years.

“There must be an assurance that judges who have no competence in the application of the criminal law will not be assigned to the criminal courts,” he pointed out, however.

“Now, as it stands, notoriously incompetent judges are often assigned to the criminal bench, leading to judge shopping by defence and prosecuting counsel,” said Tavares-Finson, charging that there are times when judges assigned to these cases are coming from a civil background and know nothing about criminal law.

Judge shopping is the process by which counsel seek out particular judges to try matters by applying for adjournments or other procedural matters, he said.

He said judges should have ongoing legal education to ensure they are up to date on developments in the law.

Tavares-Finson lamented that the issue of delay in trials was even more critical now as the United Kingdom Privy Council, Jamaica’s final appellate court, is increasingly taking a dim view of what it considers to be inordinate delays.

“And indeed our own lawyers are arguing in the appeal process that delay in the trial of their clients infringes on their constitutional rights to trial within a reasonable time,” he said.

With trial by jury not entrenched in the Constitution, Tavares-Finson, who is also president of the Senate, said that there is an urgent need for the abolition of such trials to have cases tried more speedily.

He added that he was aware that some of his colleagues at the private Bar do not support the abolition of jury trials, but said that because of his experience, he is prepared to support trial by judge alone as long as they are competent. He said that having been in a number of bench trials, he was satisfied that the results were no different than they would have been if the accused were tried by a jury.

“Aside from the issue of saving time, intimidation of jurors and the understandable reluctance of persons to serve as jurors, there is, in my estimation, no evidence to suggest that justice is better served by having laymen sit as judges in criminal cases. In fact, as I have said, the great majority of cases of the most serious nature are already adjudicated by a single judge and this applies also in the parish courts,” Tavares-Finson added.

Jury trials were suspended in March 2020 because of COVID-19 and were scheduled to resume last month.

Chief Justice Bryan Sykes has been advocating for more bench trials to have cases expedited.

Alexander Williams, president of the Jamaican Bar Association, believes the low turnout of potential jurors should not be the sole motivation for Jamaica to move exclusively to judge-alone trials.

Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn, too, believes that “for the time being”, a hybrid approach is better.

“It is my considered opinion that there are some matters that are best left with the jury to assess credibility,” she told our newsroom last week, arguing that there are some criminal cases that touch and concern communities in such a way that the public interest would be best served by allowing members of the public to be there as the final arbiter of fact.