Page 5338 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 3 December 1991
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reach a unanimous verdict. I am pleased to see that in the last 18 months or so there have been only some five hung juries, and that is certainly pleasing. Perhaps that influenced my colleague Mr Collaery to an extent in his feeling that majority verdicts were not essential.
Quite often, there is what is known as a perverse juror - one person who holds out, for an illogical reason, be it for an acquittal or be it for a conviction. Those things certainly do happen. It is all there in the report; I will not labour that any further. From my experience, you do get word back from court staff and others that one person was hanging out either way, to the exasperation of his or her colleagues. That causes a problem which is somewhat alleviated by the majority verdict system; hence my support for that system.
Mr Speaker, there are a number of other aspects in relation to this report which I think would be of benefit. I want to mention other aspects of jury trials. I think nothing cheeses off a jury more, after being empanelled and hearing a bit of evidence, than a legal point suddenly being taken by counsel. The jury goes out of the room and argument on that legal point might range from half an hour to five or six days. I have known of trials in the ACT where a jury has been empanelled, has heard evidence for about three hours, and then, for about five or six days, has been just sitting in the jury room with very little to do while counsel argued some legal point.
Not only the Director of Public Prosecutions but also the Legal Aid Office and its representatives and the ACT Bar Association indicated that they would like to see a pre-trial procedure where, ideally, the trial judge decides all the technical legal points prior to the jury being empanelled. Quite often, those points revolve around what evidence will be admitted, including, quite often, a record of interview, confessional evidence, and other types of evidence.
If those points are resolved prior to the jury being empanelled, the jury can then be empanelled, the whole trial can proceed, the relevant points again can be made in the presence of the jury and they can decide, on the merits, whether they accept them or not. There is far less likelihood of the jury being sent out for inordinate periods. The trial procedure would be a lot smoother and the administration of the criminal justice system would be a lot better.
I was pleased to see that all practitioners who appeared before the committee recommended that that pre-trial procedure be introduced; that the law be changed, where necessary, to ensure that that can happen. I think that is very important indeed. Probably this Government will not have time, but if the next government moves in that direction of law reform it will do the Territory and the administration of justice a great service. I commend that to the current Attorney-General and his successor in 1992.
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