| Prominent lawyer and former Speaker of the National Assembly, Ralph Ramkarran, believes that the time may be right for the jury trials to be abolished in Guyana.Ralph RamkarranAccording to Ramkarran in his weekly online column posted on his website, conversationtree.gy, the idea is to reduce possibilities of guilty persons escaping justice.Headlined “The Jury System Has Failed Guyana”, Ramkarran said that since last year he had argued for the abolition of jury trials because convictions are rarely obtained from juries even in the most glaring cases. Back then, the lawyer said, the Attorney General and several criminal lawyers disagreed with his suggestion.“I believe that on the scale of things,Fabian Delph Jersey, trial by jury is not an issue of paramount concern to most people. But crime is escalating and juries have continued to free the most violent criminals in the face of compelling evidence. I have not kept any figures and no statistics are published but I would not be surprised if less than five persons have been convicted in the last twenty trials. And it is not all because of faulty police investigations or incompetent prosecution.”Ramkarran, who is a senior partner in Cameron and Shepherd law firm,Budda Baker Cardinas Jersey, said that on September 16,Cheap Jerseys, one of the Caribbean’s leading jurists, Chief Justice Ivor Archie of Trinidad and Tobago,Zlatan Ibrahimovic Manchester United Shirt, delivered the opening address of the 2013/2014 Law Term.In the presence of leaders and senior legal luminaries, he said that the issue arose because there was concern that the quality of justice received was questionable.The Chief Justice pointed out that there is no constitutional right in Trinidad and Tobago to trial by jury, which also applies in Guyana. However, the argument in support of jury trials is that ‘juries are more in touch with life on the ground and that somehow translates into a truer verdict.’“Another compelling argument advanced by Chief Justice Archie is that due to the secrecy of the deliberations of juries, the determination of guilt or innocence is neither transparent nor accountable. He suggests that this violates the fundamental principles of transparency and accountability in the dispensation of justice. He noted that a Magistrate or Judge has to give reasons for decisions while juries do not.”Ramkarran argued that trial by jury existed in various forms since Greek times and was officially protected by the Magna Carta in 1215. It is considered in some jurisdictions, particularly common law jurisdictions like Guyana, to provide the ultimate safeguard against authoritarianism and the abuse of state power.“However, some common law jurisdictions such as India, Pakistan, Singapore and others have abolished trial by jury. In the case of India it was because of the divided nature of the society which resulted in jury decisions being made on the basis of prejudicial factors instead of the facts of the case.”Ramkarran said that many developed countries have developed fair judicial systems, including Germany and Italy,John Ross Womens Jersey, where decisions in criminal trials are made by tribunals consisting of a few judges and some citizens sitting together and making decisions on the guilt or innocence of the accused and passing sentence.“Even though in many countries trial by jury has been abolished or does not exist,China Jerseys Cheap, there is some form of layperson input in determining guilt or innocence of accused persons because the decision-making panels comprise a number of such laypersons.”He said that in recent years the rate of conviction in jury trials in Guyana has declined considerably even taking into account investigatory deficiencies and prosecutorial lapses. Also, many convictions are overturned on appeal because of inadequate summing up by judges to juries.“At the end of every criminal case tried in the High Court the Judge is required to assess the evidence and instruct the jury on the law. The number of appeals which have been upheld for this reason is extremely high.” |
