Should jury system be restored?

last SG · 2006-06-11T22:13:28+00:00

In the news : CNA 2.7.2006: Malaysia is studying restoration of Jury Trial. It is a right move for its judiciary by restoring Jury trial will demonstrate to...

robertteh SG

Is the GRC-type of walkover in political trial where the defenders are the weaker party who find it futile to defend thereby giving up the defence a true win.

There is simply no proper hearing of facts or laws in such lawsuits. Everything is so one-sided. What is the purpose of having a judiciary in any country? It must be for administration of justice isn't it?

The old jury is the best people to find the facts in any political defamation trial and not the judge. The reason is that the judge is too closely connected to the executive. The executive is responsible for judges' nomination, recommendation and appointments. Some judges had been transferred out after not giving judgment in favor of the executive. The damage done in past such cases were already too ingrained and deeply affecting the independence of the judiciary.

So all the judges could not be expected to giving finding of facts against the executive. Judges' salaries furthermore were so high that they are only human to tread carefully not to jeopardise their own future promotion and salaries which are administered by the executive.

If the jury system has not been abolished the executive would have to think twice before trying to start any political defamation suit because they will have to think of the facts more carefully e.g. whether the alleged defaming remarks could be justifications or objective criticism of government.

The jury would have become a more reliable and objective panel to decide whether the words uttered were defamatory or justifications. For example, if the alleged remark concerns the lack of accountability and transparency of the government refers to the NKF saga, the jury might well find that because of overwhelming evidence of lack of accountability in NKF as found by the Minister himself and the judge in the SPH/NKF case, there might be element of lack of accountability and transparency and the remark alleged to be defaming might even be objective finding of non accountability in running of NKF. But is this kind of finding possible in our present non-jury system of judiciary.

Unfortunately our jury system has been abolished leaving every thing in adjudication to the judge who will now be totally in charge of findings of laws and of facts. That is known in common parlance as being a jury and a judge at the same time signifying unfairness and injustice by the common people in many countries.

The leaders in abolishing our jury system has done the people a disservice. They should rethink the restoration of the jury system so that all the citizens will be protected against such political law suits.

If they want to govern the country with fairness and equity, then this is one move they must make to demonstrate their intention to improve and upgrade their accountability and transparency.

vito_corleone SG

if the jury system is reinstated, our dear MM will loose a lot of face, afterall, he was the one who abolished it after the jbj saga. i bet his croonies aren't gonna let the old bugger get embarrassed just yet. Laughing

ha8n SG

just a qn :

does the j ' system always fair ??

the one whom pass judgement , how do they sleep at night ?? Embarassed

robertteh SG

Very true, a leadership system ends up with all the people below trying to second guess the leader and dare not change anything the leader has spoken on without his prior concurrence.

It will take ten years to feel which way is the leader's breath is blowing and furthermore it is essential to look after one's career path as it may be too costly for million-dollar ministers to say anything like their leader is wrong.

This leadership system which many have been praising has caused delays in solving our high costs problem because leader has openly spoken against any form of subsidy resulting in every department recovering all costs and even corporatising into GLCs to charge higher fees.

This same leadeship system praised by many has caused mistakes like the CL1 policy resulting in braindrains of our local talents to overseas unversities in thousands.

This same leadeship system has caused delays in changing pr modifying the rather one-sided narrow-minded pro-foreign investments and employment policies.

Which of the million-dollar senior judges will say the jury system is the best for finding of facts for fair trial in political suits?

maggot SG

If I "buy" over the jury and I am the law Laughing

laurence82 SG

Wait, I though the thing that was abolished after the JBJ case was Privy Council serving as highest court in Singapore's judicial system?

If I am not wrong, the jury system was abolished after independence.

robertteh SG

If jury system is still around our leaders will have to be more accountable and objective and not start a defamation lawsuit so quickly on the slightest innuendos.

The jury system has been abolished for years now but I cannot remember which year. I only recalled that our great leaders have tried to justify its abolition by making some lame excuses like the jury is easily swayed by smart defence lawyers causing miscarriage of justice when the fact it is easier for prosecution in more cases to have gone overboard.

Atobe SG

The Jury System in Singapore was abolished 30 years ago as MM LKY was of the opinion that Citizens without any training nor understanding of LAW do not have the trained ability to pass judgment on a fellow-Citizen who has transgressed the LAW.

On top of this, the ordinary Citizens performing their duty as Members of the Jury maybe easily intimidated by the accused or some other forces, and maybe unduly influenced by so many external factors.

Under the present political setting in Singapore, IF the Jury System is restored, can the Jury attending to a Political Trial be any more effective than the well learned Judges - who are supposed to be less easily influenced, supposed to be independent and not so easily intimidated by any POWERS ?

robertteh SG

Originally posted by Atobe:

The [b]Jury System in Singapore was abolished 30 years ago as MM LKY was of the opinion that Citizens without any training nor understanding of LAW do not have the trained ability to pass judgment on a fellow-Citizen who has transgressed the LAW.

On top of this, the ordinary Citizens performing their duty as Members of the Jury maybe easily intimidated by the accused or some other forces, and maybe unduly influenced by so many external factors.

Under the present political setting in Singapore, IF the Jury System is restored, can the Jury attending to a Political Trial be any more effective than the well learned Judges - who are supposed to be less easily influenced, supposed to be independent and not so easily intimidated by any POWERS ?

[/b]

Thanks for the information. A great deal needs to be done to reverse past errors of the judiciary system. The leaders have to go back to basic to verify the rule of law according to the constitution to restore confidence in the judiciary.

(human) SG

Do you think the leaders will follow as what u had said? I think they prefer people to follow it accordingly.

robertteh SG

Somebody should start a survey on this topic - whether we need to bring back the jury system?

Your response: Y/N ?

MobyDog SG

Jury ???

My answer is "no"...

At the present state, I wouldn't want to be judged by my so-call "peers".. which is isn't actually my peers.

Media and money power plays has a large part affecting the jury, at most times would sometimes judge me guilty even before the trial starts.

Then there is the chances of intimidation and corruptions... not to mention, in time, it will push the lawyers fee skyhigh.

In busy Singapore, most jury would want to end the trial fast and get on with the lives... and BTW, very few people would want to sent someone to the gallows, even though they would support the death penalty in normal circumstances....

robertteh SG

We are comparing a system of judiciary dominated by the executive with one more likely to be pro-justice and pro-objectivity, open and accountable.

In such a comparison, we will have to decide whether full power should be granted to the executive-beholden judge to decide on both laws and facts of a case without being subjected to certain inherent principle of fairness and equity and objective finding of facts particularly in political defamation suits. Is there a possibility that the judges in such cases might be less than independent in giving judgement.

Justice should be not only fair and seen to be fair. As long as it is not seen to be fair, sooner or later the rule of law might break down causing instability to society.

In a system where the line between the judiciary and executive is blurred, there is a high degree of probablity of justice being compromised.

We have to look at the big picture and not let isolated instances of likelihood of some compromises by any jury members to detract us from a right move to uplift our executive-beholden system to a fairer system.

Restoration of jury will be the right move to allow us to evolve our corporate governance culture with judiciary being seen as one major component of that governance leading the change. We should evolve to a system of governance assuring all citizens that none will be prosecuted by executive who may become too powerful due to lack of check on their performance and accountability for too many years.

Our political evolvement should be towards a more pro-people and not increasing more powers of the executive.

If jury is to be implemented we could ensure that the system of selection and deployment of jury will be fair and objective, and confidential. We can ensure there will be protections. Costs may not be high because these are voluntary people.

In system there will be some good and some bad. Just like there is no guarantee we do not have corrupt ministers and CEOs so we cannot fully guarantee there will be no jury's compromises or intimidation but we should not rely on generalisation or isolated occurrence to override the many benefits of the jury system.

Let us all look at the overall bigger picture of evolving to a judiciary system which will become help to bring about a more objective pro-people cosmopolitan inclusive society to get out of our present judiciary muddle due to over-domination of the executive.

TooFree SG

If you are adamant on using political viewpoint to seek for a change in the judicary system, may I proclaim that it is more for redressing party grievance and benefits more than citizens' injustice. Should the jury system cater to political lawsuit or the masses?

I personally think that too much are at stake, safety, corruption, fear, sentiment of the jury members are all variable factors that can hamper a fair trial from taking place as compared to a few legal expertises in courtrooom. Practically, are there citizens' misgrievance, wrongfully delivered of justice or a corrupted bench of judges that warrant a jury system in place or is it solely for the sake of politics in nature? The adminstration of law should always be swift, robust and fair so that precious citizens' time and courts' resources are fully utilised not wasteful.

A jury system is good if it serve the purpose of the citizens not the politicians. Neutral

Atobe SG

A jury system is one which require the average citizens to perform a duty to the community by offering time to serve Jury Duty when selected by the Court Officials.

A jury system will allow a panel of Citizens to listen to all evidence, statements, legal guidance from attorneys and judge - then make their decision concerning the case, to arrive at a verdict.

The task of the judge will be to dispense justice according to the legislations passed by Parliament, and will not be in any influential position to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused.

With a Jury System, the decision of a number of citizens will determine the outcome of the proceeding, which is much better then what we have seen in the past politically motivated trials in Singapore - when a bias or prejudiced judge will block evidence, disrupt and obstruct due process that handicap an accused.

A Jury System will be far superior than having judges with predertimined views and slanted personal values that can lead to miscarriage of justice - whether in a political, criminal or civil trial.

LazerLordz SG

Jury system for capital crimes, with abolition of mandatory death penalty.

It should be left as an option to be decided by the judiciary, not Parliament.

No Parliament should ever be given the right to be the organ that sentences a man to death by virtue of a legal technicality.

robertteh SG

Jury is the last vanguard of truth. Restore it for democracy, accountability and transparency.

It should at least be allowed as an option to be chosen by judges in trials where the judges feel that he might be under too much pressure to conduct the fact hearing by himself.

All other issues like likelihood of jury being under intimidation or corruption can be looked into administratively. The issue here is jury will be a good safeguard against any further gerrymandering of our judiciary system which will be bad for our on-going development as a cosmopolitan and inclusive society.

vito_corleone SG

the jurt merely reaches a verdict, the judge has the last say. Laughing

vito_corleone SG

you may be right afterall Laughing

vito_corleone SG

that's BS, they can always select certain people who have knowledge of the law and have a high level of intellegence and competence. its juts an excuse to eliminate any opposition that might arise against ah lee in court. how the hell do you think he'd been able to win all those defamation suits over the years? Laughing