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The jury’s out?

10 June 2020 / Jon Robins
Issue: 7890 / Categories: Features , Criminal , Covid-19
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Jon Robins examines the potentially damaging impact of the COVID-19 crisis on jury trials

Is nothing safe beyond the insidious reach of the COVID-19 pandemic? Last month we learned our right to trial by jury (‘The lamp that shows that freedom lives’, to use the well-worn Lord Devlin quote) could be trimmed for the first time since the Old Bailey was being pummelled during the Blitz.

Has the coronavirus changed the justice system forever? asked a recent headline in The Observer. The presumption of innocence was ‘an indispensable feature of our society’ and the jury its ‘lifeblood’, wrote Jeremy Dein QC in the letters pages of the same paper. ‘It must not become another victim of this crisis.’

That twelve good men (and women) and true be hemmed in, side-by-side, on their narrow benches for weeks on end before being confined to a wood-panelled jury room for deliberations is neither a practical nor tempting prospect in the age of coronavirus. So Lord Burnett, head of judiciary in England

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
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