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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1593 ..

Mr Humphries (continuing):

JURIES (AMENDMENT) BILL 1997

I move that this Bill now be agreed to in principle.

Mr Speaker, the Juries Act 1967 forms an essential part of the administration of the criminal law of the Territory. Trials for indictable offences in the Supreme Court must be held before a jury unless the defendant elects for trial by a Judge alone, a procedure which is provided for in the Supreme Court Act 1933.

The most significant innovation in this Bill is to give a Judge in a criminal trial a discretion to direct that an expanded jury of up to 16 jurors be empanelled.

This innovation aims to avoid the situation where a criminal trial has to be abandoned and re-run because the number of jurors falls below the minimum number. During a long trial, it is possible for one or more jurors to become ill or for some other reason have to be discharged. The Act, as it stands, contains one safeguard against a trial being abandoned in this situation - a Judge can order that the trial can proceed with a jury of 11 or 10 jurors.

Members will no doubt recall that during a long criminal trial in the ACT Supreme Court in 1995 the situation arose where the jury had already been diminished to 11 jurors and one of those jurors suffered a bereavement in the family and asked to be discharged. The presiding Judge chose to postpone the trial for a week rather than continue with the bare minimum of 10 jurors. At the end of the week the bereaved juror was able to return and the trial proceeded to its conclusion.

Had the Judge discharged the juror and, later in the trial, another juror had to be discharged for some reason, the trial would have had to be abandoned. The cost of re-running the trial with a new jury would have been very significant.

The presiding Judge suggested that the Government consider amending the Juries Act to adopt the "reserve juror" system which exists in some other jurisdictions. That system enables a Judge, after the customary 12 jurors are chosen, to direct that a specified number of "reserve jurors" be chosen. Those reserve jurors sit with the jury and are treated in all respects as jurors. They are available to replace any of the original 12 who are discharged during the course of the trial.

When the Government examined the suggestion, we decided to adopt a somewhat different approach which is often described as the "additional juror" system. Under this system, a Judge may direct that a jury of expanded size be chosen. The present Bill provides for an expanded jury consisting of from 13 up to 16 members.

In this system, unlike the reserve juror system, all members of the jury are of equal status - there is no demarcation between the "base" jury of 12 and a group of "second ranking" jurors. When the time comes for the jury to retire and consider its verdict, the number of jurors, if there are more than 12 remaining, is reduced to 12. That is done by the jurors' names being drawn out of a ballot-box. The persons' names who are drawn out are discharged until the customary 12 jurors remain to consider the verdict.

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