T&T likely to do away with jury trials

(Trinidad Express) Justice Minister Herbert Volney says Trinidad and Tobago may, in time, do away with criminal trials involving juries.
Instead, anyone charged with a crime and committed to stand trial at the High Court, will only be tried by a Judge.
This, he says, will result in considerable time and money being saved.
Volney signalled his intention while delivering the feature address at the opening of the Commonwealth North Atlantic Law Ministers’ Meeting. The two-day conference is being hosted by the Minister of Justice at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre in Port of Spain.
The meeting is geared towards providing law ministers and technocrats with the opportunity to learn from key legal and judicial minds from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, India and Trinidad and Tobago in an attempt to further the enhancement of legal dialogue and cooperation for the mutual benefit of participating nations.
Volney said the initiative to move away from jury trials has already been implemented in India and in Belize.
“All of us would have had legal challenges confronting us at one point in time or the other as we have faced living with inherited systems and procedures that have placed us in backlog and consequential delays in bringing swift closure to criminal causes,” Volney said.
Volney said law ministers are charged with finding the solutions and effecting timely legislative and/or logistical interventions.
This country, he said, has already introduced legislation to remove the need for a preliminary enquiry to be held before a magistrate providing, instead, for paper committals in indictable matters.
He said much of the problem of backlog and overload in the judicial systems is systemic and may be addressed by statutory interventions.
Speaking with reporters after the opening ceremony, Volney said he believes the introduction of trials without a jury is a feasible one.
“It will be considerably cheaper. To begin with, the trials themselves will be shorter because no Judge is going to tolerate gallerying by attorneys in the course of the trial. The jury trial is more about gallerying and who could impress the jurors. Its a battle for the minds of jurors because they are the ones deciding the case.
“With a judge, there is no room for gallerying and you just stick to the point. You stick to the law and you stick to the evidence.
“I suspect and I well feel that trials by a Judge only will cut off two-thirds of the time of a trial in one stroke.
“Our magistrates preside over very serious trials without jurors. They can impose up to 10 years of imprisonment on a citizen without having the benefit of a jury.”
Volney said consultations will first be held with stakeholders to decide if citizens want to move in that direction.