Jury Trial

The jury consist of 12 ordinary lay people who is randomly selected from the society.The don't have the knowledge of law and that's is the reason why they only determine question of fact.To give a verdict they have to decide wheather the defendent is guilty or not guilty.The 12 lay people is called jurors who sit in the Crown court fro ciminal cases and in Queen's Bench Division for civil cases.

The jury system is very important in the English Legal System where Lord Denning in the case of Ward v James says that the juries is 'bulwark of the liberties' as he had in his mind that the jury syatem is a institution that could safeguard right of individual against arbitrary abused of powers.The jury system is also known as a shield of citizen against the state.This is because the law is served for the society and what is the purposed of law if the society does not get involve in the legal system.With the involvement of the society into the legal system this could maintain the public confident that justice will be served in the legal system.

Qulification to be jury is mst be a resident in the UK for 5 years since the age of 13.Must be in the age between 18 to 70.Must be a registered voter.They must not be ineligible as mentally ill or as police or religious worker and must not be disqualified under the Disqualifed Act 1984 such as imprisoned.

The random selection of the society reflect the view of society but random selection does not mean that there is equal representation because all could be all male,all female,all black and all white. For example in a particular case if the accused is a black male who is charged for rape and the jury for the trial is all female and white.The verdict of the particular case could be that the accused is guilty.This shows that there is element of discrimination as in the case of R v Ford the judge refused to accept defendent's application for a mixed jury.But here Lord DEnning stated that that the defendent should accept the jury for their case as it is ramdomly selected from the society.

Since there is 12 lay people who will decide for a particular case shows that 12 minds is better than 1 because the judge deal with black letter of law day in day out in every case.But there are times also where the juries could not understand the fact of the case applying the case of R v Young where the court of apple found out that the jury in that particular case came out with their verdict by using an ouija board by calling the spirit to ask who is the murderer.Is this how justice could be achieve?