http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/b...s%20is%20Money

Originally Posted by :
THE right to trial by jury in complex fraud trials - and possibly a range of other cases - is to be done away with under new measures to be announced by the Government today.

And so the slippery slope begins. Britain's freedoms are being systematically disassembled now, by a government who have a 1 in 5 backing of the people.
[Rep]

If I understand correctly the argument used to justify this measure is that these cases are too hard for ordinary folk to understand. Maybe I'm being unrealistic but I don't think there should be any laws beyond the comprehension of the average citizen. And surely a better solution would be to select a jury that could onderstand the proceedings, they don't have to be selected randomly.
[Rep]

This has been kicked around for ages in one form or another. Its not the law itself that generates the complexity.

Fraud (or deception by its actual name) basically boils down to a person dishonestly relieving another of money or something of value by actively giving them false or misleading info or withholding info to create a false impression.

What happens in practice is that these trails drag on for weeks or months with both sides bogging the proceedings down with endless arguments about figures on balance sheets, the chain of guilt (many use intermediaries to distance themselves from the dirty deed) and whether an action is actually a crime, or a mistake, or poor book keeping etc.

Poor Joe jury member has real problems referring back to a piece of evidence from several weeks earlier that has suddenly been cross referenced with a new bit, then someone gets a piece ruled inadmissible and the jury are told to disregard it (how can you do that!).

It ends up falling to the best summing up at the end, most people simply can't keep up with the complexity of it, which is the aim of the defence in the first place, "I don't understand the fraud, therefore I can't convict someone if I don't know what they've done"

Lets face it, if everybody could deal with this there would be no place in society for accountants.

I think the way forward on this issue is the professional jury member. Perhaps a call upon list of people who have been given a certain level of training in financial matters, book keeping or whatever other skill is deemed necessary.

With enough across the country you could always fill or at least pad out a jury with enough to allow them to filter the **** from the genuine evidence.

It may lead to more convictions, but equally could act as a good filter to stop erroneous guilty verdicts from juries that haven't understood the evidence and simply judged someone on their looks (yes, this does happen) or a possible dislike of that business (would a director of a medical research company in the dock REALLY get a fair opinion from a jury member that holds strong anti-vivisection views).

Having heard plenty of horror stories about how juries make their minds up I do think we need to look at the system, but I don't think we should start losing them.
[Rep]