Martin Partington: Spotlight on the Justice System

I wrote earlier about the experiment run by the human rights group JUSTICE on the possible use of ‘virtual jury trials’ (4 June 2020). This was seen as one way of increasing the number of cases being dealt with while the Court service struggles to protect all those involved in serious criminal trials save from the Covid-19 virus.

I’ve just read a fascinating item by Joshua Rozenberg, describing an initiative taking place in Scotland which involves juries going to the cinema and watching a trial fed into the cinema by closed circuit TV. With the numbers of screens available in multiplex cinemas, such an idea could enable quite significant numbers of trials to go ahead. Initally it is hoped that 16 screens in Glasgow and Edinburgh could be used.

Rozenberg writes: “Cameras and microphones will relay the proceedings to the cinema where jurors will hear and see the trial as if they were watching a movie. The screen will be divided into four so that jurors can see the judge, counsel and the accused while listening to witnesses or viewing the evidence.”

Members of the jury will also be under the eye of a camera, so that they can be seen in the actual court room.

Rozenberg reports the Lord Chief Justice for England and Wales as being rather dubious about this idea, suggesting that it would turn a jury trial into some form of entertainment. But would this not be preferable to proposals to do away with jury trial (an idea supported today by the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips) – at least for a time – to enable the criminal justice system in England start to offer a more acceptable level of service?

I agree with Rozenberg that this is an idea worth considering. It would also overcome some of the technical problems that might be associated with running criminal trial over Zoom or another video networking platform.

Joshua Rozenberg’s blog is at https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/trial-by-movie.

Some of the potential problems about the use of remote criminal proceedings are discussed by Roger Smith in https://law-tech-a2j.org/remote-courts/remote-courts-and-the-consequences-of-ending-practical-obscurity/