The Jury: Moral Innovation or Historic Relic?

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Good evening. As a BBC reporter, I covered several of the most prominent trials of the late 20th century and would look across at the jury and wonder why such an important decision had been left in the hands of such ordinary people. When I came to sit on a jury myself, I realised our ordinariness was the point. Maybe I was lucky, but our jury seemed to display a collective common sense in the midst of a judicial system even then under strain, disorganised and dysfunctional.

There's a backlog now of some 80,000 cases. The median wait for a trial of a not guilty plea is approaching a year, often far longer. The system's seizing up. Justice delayed, everybody says, is justice denied. To speed things up, the Justice Secretary, David Lammy, wants to get rid of juries in all but the most serious cases, those carrying a potential sentence of three or more years.

It will upend a tradition going back to Anglo-Saxon times and enshrined in the Magna Carta, that you shouldn't be deprived of your liberty just on the say-so of an elite. No great loss, some would say. In their view, juries are inefficient, can be perverse or prejudiced, unable to cope with complexity. But the backlash across the legal system and beyond has been fierce. So, are trial juries an essential safeguard of our liberties?

More, should that principle of giving ordinary people a voice in public life be extended with randomly selected citizens advising, deciding on major issues, even replacing the House of Lords? The jury's out on the moral maze tonight. Our panel, Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Religion and Society at King's College London, the historian Tim Stanley, the campaigner and commentator Inaya Falarin-Eman, and the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, Matthew Taylor.

Matthew, have you ever been on a jury? Yes, Michael, I have. It was a mixed experience. The guilty verdict we reached was a close thing. But then we were told information which meant actually it was an open and shut case. So I support the principle of juries in law. and in a different form in politics. But right now, I'm kind of wondering whether expediency may require us to restrict the right to jury trials to the most severe crimes. Inaya.

Jury trials are an ancient guarantor of our freedoms. They embody the wisdom of the masses and are a bulwark against decision-making that too often become detached from ordinary life. Tim.

You asked the question, have any of us sat on a jury? You should have asked, have any of us been on trial? That's far more interesting. I haven't, but if I was, I would damn well want a jury. Government has two core functions, to protect my life and to protect my liberty, hence it locks up criminals, but it should also provide...

a fair trial in accordance with this country's traditions. Mona? So juries are symbolic of fairness and transparency, but I'm not sure that I'm convinced by that, and that's what I'd like to explore.

Banal, thanks very much indeed. Our first witness is Sir Simon Jenkins, former editor of The Times, of course, Guardian, columnist, author and serial juryman three times, I think. Three times and four men once.

Are they, in your view then, in your personal experience, a vital ancient safeguard of our liberties or an inefficient anachronism? I've been talking about this for the past week. I think I've never heard so much nonsense talk about such an important subject. There's a major crisis in the judgment. justice system. And no one's come up with a decent idea what to do about it. And almost all the piecemeal solutions are only halfway. So I don't think you save money by

Juries, 3% of criminal cases go before a jury. It's absolutely trivial. And the idea of trying to take us back to the Magna Carta, which has nothing to do with the case at all. It's about barons, that was. Are we going to have hanging? Are we going to have a debate about ducking stools? It's just ridiculous that we go back in history like this. And I think the most important thing is to look at how people do it abroad.

A much better judicial system is Scandinavian ones. Germany, I've studied them. They're fairer than ours. They're better than ours. I think they're juster than ours. They send far fewer people to prison. And I just cannot see, and they haven't got nothing. do with jurors. Juries at all. Tim Slatton? Now, Sir Simon, if you were accused of one of those 3% of crimes and you were innocent, I assume you would be, would you want a jury?

It doesn't really matter what I want. Oh, I think it does. I think it does. I mean, you're very unlikely to get one. But, I mean, if you wanted a jury, I think the proper thing to do is say, well, it's going to cost so much to do it this way. We'll do it that way. We could do it that way. 12 good men in trees sitting there for hours on end.

waiting for you to turn up or hoping you'll turn up and possibly saying, we'll look after you in three years' time. It's out of date. The only other country that does it like we do is America, and it's collapsed there. It's just absolutely collapsing. It's a ridiculous way. discussing a serious matter like crime and punishment. And we don't have juries for...

hospital operations. We don't have juries for building planning matters. I mean, I think we probably should. But I just, I find the fact that we're even discussing it is bizarre. Right. But you say good, men and true. That implies this is a test of moral excellence, but it's not. The point about juries is they are representative.

of the community that the crime is being committed in or that the criminal themselves come from. And therefore they are perhaps a better judge because they will have not the same biases as the judge would have. Well, I know this fine talk. I've heard so much of it. I've sat on three juries and it's just ridiculous to elevate them into some grand citadel of liberty dating back to the Stone Age.

2017, when David Lammy, the current Minister for Justice, said, quote, Juries are a success story of our justice system. Rigorous analysis shows that on average, juries, including all white juries, do not deliver different results for BAME and white defendants. His point back then...

was, that one of the strengths of the jury system is, say, a young black man accused of something he didn't do might come up against a snobby old white judge, but if he comes up against a mixed race, or even it turns actually a white jury, they can be far fairer in their justice. They could be.

Anything could happen. He's saying they are. In 2017, he thought that anyway. Well, that's what David Lammy thought. I'm not David Lammy, thank goodness. What I'm most concerned about is getting an efficient system, frankly. And I do think the system of the court... The criminal trial. court is archaic. To have the barrister very briefly briefed, trying to show off before another barrister. And the jurors, all the jurors, they tried to decide who was the better barrister, in my experience.

I just can't believe we're discussing it. I really can't. And the sad thing is really that the system of citizens and barristers, which is archaic in itself, and barristers are a trade union that make the BMA look like a puncher. They delivered people. The court needs to be radically reformed. And unless we get down to that, we're not going to shorten this.

crisis at all I was interested in your medical parallel are you implying that there are some questions of expertise that ordinary people should not be brought in on well for one thing We had a crisis in one of the juries I was on because we weren't allowed to be told anything about the accused's background. And this was completely absurd.

And he had serious conditions which affected how he was behaving. And the jurors were going on about, oh, I rather like that woman in the gallery. It's ridiculous. Do I sense correctly you don't trust your peers? I wouldn't trust my peers to decide what sort of operation I'm going to get. I wouldn't trust my peers to decide on a planning application. I mean, these are matters of expertise.

And particularly now in jury cases where evidence is subject so often to detailed scientific analysis. It's not a matter of just do I believe him or not. But in the case, if you want the parallel with the medical thing of the surgeon, I mean, the point is it's about agency.

to something the entire state is against you and they're out to prove you wrong okay you don't want someone saying to a surgeon don't do that but you might want someone stepping on your behalf and saying look give this guy another chance well i i mean i i'd love to have a jury when i got done for 20 miles an hour

speeding. I think I might have got away with it in that case. But we're trying to discuss a serious matter, which is crime and punishment. And crime and punishment in this country is a terrible mess. Far too many people go to prison. is not working at all well. I look at Norway and I think to myself, they're in the 21st century. We're in the 19th. It's as bad as that at the moment. Why do you think that juries are one of the most trusted aspects of the legal system?

They trust... The public, by the public. Well, I mean, they've been sold it. I mean, very few people who've served on juries are wild enthusiasts about them, I have to say. And I personally never wasted too much time in my life. But I mean, I think, I mean, there is a rhetoric around you. as you're quite right, which says these are the embodiment of our liberty. All I can say is having experienced it, I just don't think it is.

I guess trust is a core aspect of the justice system. If people don't trust that they've had a fair trial or believe that the judgment was... got to fairly, then the entire system effectively collapses. So how can you reduce that core element to a question of administrative speed? I would have what...

what the Leveson Inquiry came up with, which is a judge and two assessors. Those assessors might be JPs. They're ordinary civilians. If you want ordinariness, they're there. This is the system that operates throughout Western Europe, throughout Europe. And to your point, it really just seemed to me that we ought to look at what is the most expedite way of getting justice.

In 97% of cases, people are perfectly happy to go to what some people call the Star Chamber. Well, I mean, even the question of speed is... When it comes to a judge, there can be appeals and that can often go on longer and longer. But take the question of immigration cases at the moment, which is obviously quite a salient issue. They're often decided by a judge.

People feel like the cases that are decided one way lack common sense and are detached from many of the views that prevail in the public about the issues of immigration. Could you not see that as an example of where the judgment from the judge is increasingly becoming detached from the... the wisdom of the masses, so to speak. Well, if the judgment of a judge is becoming detached from the wisdom of the masses, it affects 97% of cases coming before court.

It's not as if we're discussing a major feature of the British justice system. We're not. This is a completely eccentric area of justice, which affects 3% of cases. Yet you're having a moral maze on the subject. I can't believe it. Thank you for coming along. But just going back to that question of trust, if we do accept that trust in institutions is low, how would concentrating more power in...

professional legalistic elite be part of the solution? Because I'd reform the system as a whole. I just simply don't think I am investing more power in a section. giving power to three rather than one judge, which I think is an appropriate way of doing it, is what happens in other countries where they send fewer people to prison. They have less crime than we have.

And they have an efficient system, which is not delaying justice by four years. Even your previous comparison about an operation, that's quite a technical matter. But when it comes to a lot of what we're talking about, it's the idea. that ordinary people can judge credibility, motive, harm and character. These are things that people actually do every single day. And so why can't we really be trusted to do so?

Well, anyone can be trusted to do anything, I suppose. I think we're dealing with a subject which is crime. Crime and punishment, both of which are different sciences, but both of which are scientifically respectable. And I want experts to be involved in that. And I think my experience of a jury is it's pretty haphazard. It's a casual conversation in a bar. And you're absolutely right. People like conversations in bars. You're absolutely right that it can seem fair that way.

But I don't, I practically don't trust it. And I just simply think we've got to move on. And we will move on, I'm sure. In years' time, or 10 years' time, or 50 years' time, we'll have moved on. Sir Simon Jenkins, thank you very much indeed.

Our next witness is Fiona Rutherford, who's chief executive of the campaigning group Justice, whose stated objective is to fight for a fair justice system. Will diminishing the role of juries in this way make the system less fair, do you think? It certainly will. We know that juries are the most trusted element of the...

criminal justice system. We know it from consecutive polling and partly that's because it is a representative group of individuals, 12 people who bring their own diversity of thought, their own background, their own experiences into the courtroom and it provides that that the public wouldn't often get unless they are accused of crime or are a victim or witness of crime. It provides that really important connection from society into a part of the system that we all think is very important.

Mona, Mona Siddiqui. So Fiona, I'd like to pick up on the fairness issue. But before that, would you agree that jury trials are the slowest and most resource intensive form of trial? No. Why not? Because we already know that three out of five trials failed to get to the jury at the first occasion. So the inefficiencies in the system are...

much more enhanced and much more amplified before a jury even gets put in charge, as it's described, of a case. But reducing juries then, even if they're just a small proportion, that would reduce some of the backlog? Small amount.

Small enough. But anything would help. At best. Every little helps. Well, except we don't know that it won't necessarily increase time taken. Because if you remove the jury, what you need to do to replace it is the judge then needs to go away and write a written judgment to balance.

out the evidence, to rationalise why she has directed herself in a certain way. That will take some time. You see, in a way, the physical estates and the human infrastructure of the justice system has been stripped back for so long that delays now embedded in... the system. So really we are looking at a complete reform of the justice system, not just picking at certain things. But to your point about fairness,

I used to think when I was first approached by this, I thought, no, it would be unfair to remove the jurors. But then I thought, actually, what is exactly fair about having 12 people on a jury who go away and deliberate, come back with a verdict of guilty or not guilty? And they don't have to explain why they've reached that conclusion. So much of what happens in the criminal courts is about people.

It's about whether somebody has lied about something. It's about whether somebody has done something to somebody else. It's yes, there's scientific evidence. Yes, there's digital evidence that's involved. But more often than not, it's about whether somebody is telling the truth. And when it comes down to it, human beings care about that and they bring into the courtroom. I've seen it for myself as being a barrister for some years.

they bring that experience into the courtroom and it's invaluable. But having a judge and maybe two other magistrates or whatever the system might be to replace it, why can't we trust that more than 12 people who don't have to explain? why they reached a certain verdict. Because the... The beauty of not having to explain your verdict is actually in exactly that. The anonymity that juries get means that there is no target for a very difficult, sometimes controversial decision that may be made.

in a way that if a judge was making that decision, and we can see there's plenty of evidence around what happens when judges are targeted. That's what would happen if... But what you're saying doesn't convince me that juries are also opaque. They can be emotionally driven. They're not necessarily representative of society as a whole because a lot of biases show that...

There are very few working class people. There are very few shift workers. There are very few people who work odd hours for their livelihood who are representative on juries. This is empirical research that shows this. So in a way, you could be your aim.

might be good your intention might be good we want a cross-section of society but that doesn't really live up i'm not aware of any evidence that says juries aren't diverse uh the only way diversity also has its limits doesn't it but the only way you can sit on a jury is to have a very good excuse

A Crown Court judge will expect you to sit on a jury if you're called, and it's called from the electoral register, so I'm not sure that I follow the evidence that you, or I'm aware of the evidence you've talked about. In terms of judges... That's certainly true. And in terms of the magistracy, that's certainly true. 79%, nearly 80% of applicants to become a magistrate came from professional backgrounds and not from the service industry or from manual jobs.

If we replaced the adversarial process that we have at the moment with two barristers or two sides trying to persuade a jury in rather kind of performative... theatrics of a courtroom, which I'm sure you're used to, if we oppose that with a judge who can forensically dissect the facts and reach a decision quicker, would that not help? the backlog and everything that seems so clogged up.

Well, I obviously don't accept the original premise that juries is what clogs it up. And I can talk about other efficiencies. But in terms of the way in which the system works now, the jury... Sorry, forgive me. Can you repeat the first bit of your question? No, it was basically...

The adversarial process of having two barristers, basically. The performative aspect of it. In my experience, a judge will tell you off pretty quickly if you're being performative. That's my first point, I think. The second point is the jury probably don't like it if you are being performative.

performative um and the third point i think is is around um the the the role that barristers are really there to play and it's not about amateur dramatics it's about either doing the best they can to fight fiercely for the prosecution case or for the defence. That's what their primary role is there to do.

I understand that you question the kind of efficiency argument being made by the government, but nevertheless, in a situation of limited public spending, almost all decisions involve... infringing things people might see as rights access to health care access to work the right to keep the money you earn if there is a trade-off do you think the right to jury trial trumps those other rights or entitlements i think when it comes to losing your liberty

I think it's pretty high up on the list of things that you should care about investing in. Okay. But then that leads us to think about the kind of outcomes. And if we focus on outcomes, I think the evidence suggests very little difference. in the outcomes of jury or bench trials. They seem to have similar wrongful conviction rates. Magistrates are a slightly more diverse group than judges. Yes, juries sometimes confound public prejudice and they enrich brave verdicts, but they also...

often guilty of miscarriages of justice. So in terms of outcomes, what are the benefits? The benefits are that, and there is evidence of this in the magistrate's court, there are... And you've alluded to the fact that there is slightly more diversity. There is certainly no socioeconomic diversity in the magistrate's court versus the crown court versus jury.

To be clear, juries are socioeconomically, they have to be diverse for the reasons I've said already. But in terms of the wider point that you're making... I think it's essential that juries have the ability to play that role and to take part in a part of the system that is... essential to the people that are in it, whether they're victims, whether they're defendants, etc. Great. But, you know, if I think about some of the really big...

Cases in my life, the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, Winston Silcott, not to mention other recently exposed miscarriages like Peter Sullivan. I mean, they're not great advertisements for jury trials, are they? No, but you don't have to look very hard to find examples of where... judges make um judges alone or um the

the blame for trials going wrong or miscarriages of justice. You don't have to look very far for there to be examples of where the jury has absolutely nothing to do with it. Look at the Libor case most recently, just a few months ago, where it was discovered that a...

range of different tiers of judges including a number of crown court court of appeal judges had made the wrong decision according to the supreme court decision in that case okay but i'm interested in a in a point that an eye i think made to to simon jenkins which was that One of the good things about juries might be that they, unlike the legal establishment, reflect public opinion. Now, in some of the cases I've just described, like the Birmingham Six, they probably reflected public opinion.

other people worry about verdicts like in the Coulson statue case, where it seems that juries are driven by public opinion more than the letter of the law. How do you feel about that? I don't know that there is a huge amount of evidence that juries are driven in a certain way.

they are reflective generally of the community in which the trial is taking place because they are literally drawn from, as I say, the electoral register that covers that particular area. But there is, as I was... about to say in terms of the magistrates court there is you know there is evidence to show that magistrates will often convict

Chinese and black women more than they will with white women. I get that. Those are obviously dealing with cases on a daily basis, not the big mass carriages that you're talking about. I get that. But at the risk of Tim and I raising their eyebrows, you know, you can...

do useful training that helps you kind of overcome instinctive kind of prejudices and bias. And I would expect magistrates to do that and judges to do that. But we don't do that with the public on the show. Would you be at all concerned if... Asylum seekers accused of crimes were tried in areas with incredibly high levels of hostility to them. Would you be worried about whether they'd get a fair trial?

Well, I think submissions would be made in any particular individual case and the judge would then weigh up what the evidence said about whether or not there was prejudice or biases likely to affect the case. That's the reality of what would happen. But I think more than...

Yes, it's true that prejudice, we all bring our own prejudice into any room on any occasion, but the reality is having 12 people to check and balance against potentially individual prejudices that are brought in is a much safer position to be in than one solitary person.

and sitting in a room by themselves deciding on the evidence based on their own background and experience. But wouldn't you say it is a bit odd? I mean, I've been in kind of management, leadership, all sorts of contexts for decades.

I've never been as ill-prepared, really, for anything as I was when I did jury trial. And the conversation was a bit all over the place. And in that sense, it's Simon Jenkins' right that it is slightly archaic. The fact that you come into a jury room is exactly what... without the sort of the knowledge is exactly the...

the position that we should be aiming for, having 12 people who come in without any expectations and are listening solely to the evidence in the case, be it from witnesses or from the defendant or the victim in the case, that's exactly what you want in order to assure. fair justice. Vienna Rutherford, thank you. Thank you very much indeed.

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Now, our next witness is Anna Koot from the think tank New Economics Foundation that says it promotes social, economic and environmental justice. Author of a book on citizens' juries, sometimes called Citizens Association. Assemblies. So we can take it far from getting rid of criminal crime trial juries. You want the concept expanded into other parts of public life. Is that right?

Yes, it's the principle, it's the old idea that has been developed in the court over years and that we treasure so much. It seems really odd in a way that it's... only kept in the court system. I mean, if we think it is valuable, that it's important to involve the opinions of people who are, just have what we call lived experience rather than... formal qualifications, taking decisions or being part of decisions on behalf of society as a whole, then why is it left simply in the court system?

Just briefly, Anna, could you just let us know a bit about how citizens, juries work in politics? Yes, well, I mean, in many different ways, and it's something that's still evolving. We started experimenting in the UK back in the 1990s. And it's the idea that you have people who are selected because they're... have everyday experience, that they could be a jury of a dozen or so people or a panel of maybe 20 people or a much larger citizens forum or assembly.

And they have certain principles you follow. So, for example, the members are chosen to be broadly representative of society. There can be various ways of doing it. They have a clear task. A very clear question or an issue that they're asked to consider. They're furnished with enough information.

so that they can have a decent, well-informed discussion and they can cross-examine expert witnesses. OK, so just a few questions. So who chooses the experts and who chooses the subjects and who chooses the evidence? Well, yes, and there are more principles. So I just do want to finish that. I mean, it matters that they have time. This is a, you can't do this kind of thing on the cheap. You've got to do it.

with enough time, with enough information, bringing in the witnesses, letting the jurors themselves or the members of the panel have a say in how the agenda is set and then having the time to discuss. So who chooses them?

It depends how they are commissioned. They might be commissioned by a national government or by a local authority. I heard that the Bank of England has a panel. So is there an example that you've seen recently that you think it's worked well? I think Ireland is... often cited yes the Irish one is a really good one because what they took they took a really controversial subject

which was about the abortion law in Ireland. And they got a group of people, I think there were 90 people over a period of six months, had several meetings of this panel. And they decided, they recommended. that the law was repealed. And they then put that recommendation to a referendum and it was overwhelmingly passed by the referendum. So it was about a clear public interest issue.

And this is where I think they should be used. But just on that particular example, because I think there's been a more recent referendum in Ireland, which was on the constitution around the wording of family. And there was a number of citizens' assemblies that would...

taken place and it was recommended that the constitution would then be changed but actually the actual referendum result was overwhelmingly uh the opposite so i think a lot of people have actually seen that as well why was there such a disconnect between the citizens assembly

the result because presumably the citizens assembly is meant to be a representative of of the public and public opinion there's a there's a disconnect there clearly life is complicated and that

Things like that can happen and things change. And I mean, this is not a perfect system. And I think the one thing we have to remember about this is that you cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And this is something that is about using... ordinary people to participate through democratic dialogue.

in decisions that affect the lives of ordinary people. I put it to you that one of the reasons why the most recent one was there was a disconnect is because essentially citizens' assemblies are trying to create... consensus and actually many of these issues need to be had out in a in the public sphere in a contested way and that and that's part of democracy

Absolutely, but so what they had is they had the Assembly, they had the referendum, there was a different decision. That's the kind of interaction that is to be valued and applauded, not to say, well, it means that the whole city... Tim, listening to you describe what a citizens' assembly is, I was thinking you're describing parliament. So why not just have parliament? Well, I don't think Parliament is actually selected to represent society.

It's selected by society. It's not selected through stratified sampling, for example. I mean, it isn't quite the same. Now, a very important point about citizens' juries and the various... forms of democratic dialogue is it's never intended to replace or overtake representative democracy is there to enrich representative democracy. It sounds to me, I'm sorry, like an extra layer of bureaucracy that's going to come out of my taxes. I voted for an MP to make a decision.

their MP make a decision without farming it out to a citizens' assembly of 99 people who I presume are receiving money. Well, that's another important point that you've raised, that the citizens' jury model is it takes time, it does cost money, and it's very important to use it strategically. which is why I'm actually quite in favour of what Simon Jenkins was saying about the juries in the court system to use them strategically.

But that's not the discussion we're having now. So I'm not saying on every single decision that the... MPs would take. They've got to farm it out, as you put it, to ordinary people. I'm saying that there are lots of subjects where it really helps and you get much better decisions as a result if you can engage. gauge a wider range of people who represent the public in a discussion and informed and extended deliberation about that issue, you then get a better result. So it makes for better.

decision making in some issues, but you must use it strategically because we can't have citizens taking decisions on everything. But that's interesting, the word strategically, because I suspect...

that you want in a Citizens' Assembly because you want a particular outcome and you think you're more likely to get it if you're involved with Citizens' Assembly. Let's take the question of abortion. Now, when the Citizens' Assembly, it did not say what must happen. It suggested what should happen. But that was praised as an...

example of something which had broken a deadlock in irish society that irish politicians would never discuss abortion so this assembly had to now you break a deadlock why do you do that you do that because you want the law to change be honest you're holding citizens assemblies

aren't you? Because there are certain areas where you'll get what you want as a progressive. You're more likely to get it if you do it through the assemblies than through parlance or referendums. Are you saying that groups of ordinary people who are representative of society at large are likely to take... more progressive decisions than the MPs? Well, they have, because I gave you the example of they were asked to discuss marriage. So you're critical of our system for its conservatism.

That's what annoys you about the system, isn't it? It's the fact that it's not producing the results you like. I think we need a much more participatory decision-making system in our politics, which will... go alongside and enrich representative democracy. That's what I think. It isn't because I, and actually, most of the things that you'd want to put to a citizen's jury or a panel are questions that you don't necessarily know the answer to.

So it's about exploration. It's about bringing different people's views together. It's about building towards a shared... If you can get it, you can't always. I've watched many of these juries taking place. And one of the most exciting things about it is watching people listening to other people and changing their minds and looking around the problem and seeing different angles. you get a really rich idea of how you could make a decision if you involve ordinary people.

going to things like local decision-making so you can help a local authority to make a much better decision about how to, on a planning issue, I disagree with Simon on that. So it helps.

It's about a stronger democracy. The Assembly, as Anaya pointed out, when asked to discuss the role of marriage in the Irish Constitution, came up with trying to take gender out of it, which was a very controversial, unordinary position, not the one held by most people. Let's face it, these Assemblies are framed... come up with progressive answers you've talked about one assembly you can't talk about these assemblies i mean what about the scottish government um

asking a citizens' assembly about a minimum income guarantee or the Climate Change Committee. Oh, it's all left-wing ideas. I'm sorry. It's all about getting left-wing ideas through the back door. Sorry. Oh, dear.

Thank you very much indeed. Our next witness is Tom Simpson, who's a professor of the philosophy of public policy at Oxford University. Professor Simpson... Matthew Tate. Great. Matthew. What kind of mandate do you think an election provides when the winning party gets less than one in four citizens voting for them and their manifesto contains 200 or more policies? So I think it's really important to say it's...

formally supportive of the principle of greater public engagement in political debate. But as you highlight, elections are exactly the primary means by which this happens. Citizens' assemblies have the risk that they are undermining democracy. They're trying to dilute the mandate that comes through the electoral process. And they also allow this covert exercise of power.

Tim was suggesting that often they're used for progressive policy outcomes. I'll really believe the principle is sincere when there's a proposal that we have this on immigration policy, obviously the most salient issue in British politics right now. But this question of agenda-setting power, you can see immediately, suppose there was a Citizens' Assembly prompted by the Labour Party, would the outcomes of that satisfy?

the critics, those who would want a more strict immigration policy, and vice versa with reform? Well, I'll get into a couple of those points. I mean, it's worth saying that citizens' juries... are often filmed. People can actually watch the process. They can see whether or not it seems to be fair, unlike, of course, a jury in a court case. Now, actually what government does between elections, because they have an incredibly thin mandate, really, for any particular...

policy is they can conduct consultation exercises of the public. Do you think that's a good thing to consult the public?

So, of course, it's a good thing to consult the public. But those consultation exercises, I can tell you, because I've sometimes been involved in them, they tend to get dominated by vested interests or by people being organised by vested interests. They don't, you know, you very rarely get any... anything like a representative answer to that so don't we need to have to do more than kind of bog standard consultation processes yeah absolutely and so i i think i mean the point you make

I think exactly counts against citizens' assemblies. This is precisely the worry that they're not representative. For politicians who are deeply concerned to know what the public really think, what they do is they conduct focus groups. They do it behind closed doors. They don't declare the results. And they really listen. That's the whole art of...

as it were, the dark art of spin. But you need to receive what's being said at that point. Well, let's challenge a couple of these myths. So first of all, you said, well, the problem is they're not representative. I mean, citizens and jurors, the people who participate, they're not selected by... the people who commission them or by either side, they are nearly always chosen by specialists in a polling companies.

everyday job is identifying representative samples. So they are genuinely representative. That's absolutely inherent to their design. But also you suggest they always reach left-wing findings. It's true that...

That they tend, for example, on criminal justice issues to end up more liberal. But I'll tell you something else that's interesting. They tend to go into a citizen's jury saying it's all the government's fault and they tend to come out saying, you know, actually the public should bear more responsibility. What do you think of that?

And so if I may just go back to the question of representation, there's two really important distinct sense of representation we're talking about here. So one is, you know, a subset of people, 100. Do they represent the general public on various demographic characteristics, sex, race, religious commitment, political affiliation, and so forth? There's a second sense of representation, which is the one that democracy is centrally concerned with, which is...

I and every other member of the voting public in Brisbane go into the polling booth, we cast our vote, and we commit ourselves by the fair rules of the game to the outcomes that result. That's the way that democracy works. And crucially, citizens' assemblies fail the second test because the people involved are not accountable. They present their opinions, they defend them at that point, and then they walk away.

And the crucial thing that's missing from citizen assemblies is parties. So that's what's cut out of this whole process. And parties really matter for our democracy because they're accountable to the public at the next election. And the public have a very positive view of...

Political parties, of course. But this gets me to the issue that always comes up in these debates. And you're guilty of the same thing as Anaya and Tim and almost everyone who's opposed to citizens' jurors, which is you want to suggest that the decisions they make are... It is never the case. It is always that they are advisory. The ultimate decision is made by the politicians who are accountable.

Why are you so afraid of the idea of enhancing a representative democracy? Why do you want to portray it as an attempt to replace it? I mean, so two points, just... Factually, obviously, citizen assemblies do take different forms globally, so the majority in the context that we might be thinking of will tend to be advisory. There are examples of binding.

Yeah, but we're talking about the main, we're talking about, you know, where they, in this country, they've only ever been advisory and anyone who recommends them says they should be advisory. Sure. And so the second point is...

You know, when a boss wants to fire a bunch of people, what does he or she do? They don't bring people into the office and say, I've decided to fire you. They say, I've commissioned a report from a management consultancy which will tell me objectively who needs to go. And the report duly comes in.

They say, oh, my hands are tied. This is what I was told. I'm sorry, people. Don't blame me. Off we go. So what we have is a crisis of people taking responsibility for their actions. What we really need is politicians to do the latter. I don't really understand this. You want to say we shouldn't have citizens in the same place because we should trust politicians. Politicians but then when it comes to politicians

creating a citizens' assembly, you're saying that they'll conspiratorially rig them in order to get what they want. I'm a bit confused. Should we trust or not trust politicians? I'm saying we should improve our politics and we should invest in the existing forms of democracy that we have and improve the pathways.

to them for ordinary people so that we have better politics. Mona. So you mentioned accountability and I just want to press you on that. If I have understood you correctly, you're defining accountability through elections only. Is that correct? Not only, but I'm saying that they're a primary and absolutely vital source of accountability. Yeah, but political scientists have identified three types of accountability. There's electoral, which you mentioned, procedural, legal.

And there's also the deliberative, which is where we are with citizen assemblies. Surely a combination of all three would enhance democratic citizenship, wouldn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. And so, I mean, nothing that I said denied that. So I want a richer, deliberative public forum. And I absolutely think that there can be a role that's played by citizen assemblies to support that. The crucial question is what the... prominences that you give to them where the politicians use them as a kind of offset as a force of rival persuasive influence persuasive authority into the public sphere

or whether they're more a bottom-up source of good policy ideas, which, I mean, who would object to that? They could be both, couldn't they? What would be wrong with that? Well, the former begins to undermine democracy because precisely what you're doing is you're setting up rival sources of influence and power in the public stage. But they don't have any...

Sorry to interrupt, but they don't have any power in terms of legislation. They're just advisory. Absolutely, but they have persuasive power. And they can be given that persuasive power according to the construct, according to the terms of reference, which are obviously expert-led. You see, one of the things about elections is that every four or five years, they create long, unaccountable periods. They offer low information choices.

People are rarely punished for policy failures. They often fail their constituents. How is that more accountable? Why is that the ultimate test in accountability? Because they're...

People are removed from their jobs at the end of it if they fail. Yeah, but after a very long time. And in that time in between, they're not accountable to anyone for the policy failure or for broken promises. Sure. And so we have to see democracy in a richer sense. It's not just exercised every five years at the ballot box.

It's not just even excise at the local elections that take place beforehand. It's an ongoing deliberative process. But it does fundamentally have to be anchored by these points where the public are able to remove those from power if they're failing to perform. So if you were to suggest a change, would you say four or five? years is too long.

Well, so some of my New Zealand colleagues who have a three-year electoral cycle kind of raise their eyebrows at the penalties this imposes on their political culture because they're always in campaigning mode. You get about a year of effective delivery before you're into campaign. I think we're doing fine. I think the fundamentals of our democracy, the constitutional fundamentals...

are tried and tested. They've lasted for a very long time. We tinker with them at our peril. What we need to do is make sure that they work as well as they can. Do they work, though? I mean... Every day people talk about our politics is broken, people don't trust politicians, people have a lack of trust in all organisations because people feel they're being lied to. So really, is it really working?

So that's about the quality of the people in our politics. Yeah, but I mean, that could be, I mean, are you talking about politicians now? I mean, the point I'm trying to make is... They're elected by the people. Sure. And I've said politics and rather democracy is much bigger. than just the 650 MPs in Parliament. There's a whole ecosystem. We are part of that ecosystem taking place right here and now.

But we need to raise the calibre of public debate and we need to focus on investing in the existing resources on the existing institutions. Why wouldn't a citizens jury or assembly be able to raise the calibre of that public debate? I suppose what I've been trying to indicate is that it's an allocation of resource, financial resources, what's been covered earlier. But I think more importantly, it's the resource of political attention. That's the most precious resource we have.

insofar as we direct that away to other sources of legitimacy. I just want to... One example. So an organisation that's been under a lot of scrutiny, a lot of criticism like the BBC, it has a board and no one knows what really happens in that board as an outsider, but we pay the licence fee. Do you think the BBC would... benefit from having a Citizens' Assembly kind of format to work with the BBC, work with the management, reflect the viewers' interests, etc.

I want to see the BBC have critical friends inside and then parliamentary processes of holding each other as a public body to account to the highest standards of impartiality. And that is ongoing and it's a very painful period, clearly, for the corporation. But I trust that those processes will bring about a better result afterwards.

Professor Simpson, thanks very much indeed for joining us this evening. So, panel, where have we got to? It was the planned reduction in the role of criminal juries that set us off. Tim... Sir Simon Jenkins was magnificently dismissive of the whole thing. Even discussing it, he regarded it as bizarre. So we're really grateful to him for actually turning up. How powerful a case did he make?

Sir Simon Jenkins has no peers, let's be honest. He's a devil curmudgeon, but I actually thought he made some very good points. David Lammy is trying to deal with a simple practical problem, which is that years of underfunding... have left us with a backlog of about 80,000 cases that they've got to get through. Jury trials is a very small percentage. It's about 3% of the overall cases. So if you just shave off a few more of those, what have you really lost? It means you can expedite.

justice, as he put it. Although that to me is a problem because I think things should tilt towards the accused rather than the accuser by the time things get to court. Now, he dismissed the whole notion of Magna Carta. That's a long time ago, and he was right. That's about the right to be judged by your peers as barons, not as ordinary people. But the point is, it's trickled down to our system, and it has shaped...

in Britain, a culture is saying that policing and justice must be community-based. It's not about the state or a judge, a faceless judge, handing something down, however expert they are. but rather it is a fair assessment of guilt by your peers. And I, I think, put it so well that ultimately justice, when it gets to a trial, is not just about technicalities, it's about a judgment of character.

And that is best done by 12 people drawn from your community who understand you and are able to read your face and your actions and come to a judgment. But Matthew, he did paint a... pretty grim picture from his own experience of being a juror three times, in fact. You know, a collection of people who really just didn't have a clue at all were hopelessly adrift and in a system that was hopelessly inefficient.

Yeah, I mean, look, he made a powerful... Because I don't entirely agree. I'm not sure, for example, you can hold juries responsible for the rate of crime or incarceration, as he seemed to be doing. I do think...

He was right to suggest to us that we often hold on to this principle just because it's been around for a long time and other countries seem to have more functional systems and they're not hung up on juries. I thought a really interesting point was the one... raised by Anaya, which was the idea that juries should be defended because they're more likely to reflect public opinion than the legal establishment that's out of touch.

As I suggested in my conversation with Fiona Rutherford, that rather worries me, actually, particularly if we're becoming a more polarized society. And we can see what this has led to in America, where it's almost impossible to have a jury now because almost...

Everybody is ruled out because of where they stand on the political spectrum. He makes a rather obvious point that you wouldn't want a jury to decide on what operation you should have or something like that. Do you think that's... something of a cheating argument, or do you think it's a matter of real principle there?

I think that the idea that, of course, we need to value those that have studied and trained and developed expertise, I think is, of course, an important one. But I think that there's something different and we need to recognise the difference between that. and what is the justice system, which is about some of those...

deeper moral questions to which democracy kind of underpins them. And I think that Simon was quite dismissive of that. And I think it's interesting that he does say that it's medieval and archaic. In my view, it's actually... The opposite. It's actually medieval and archaic, this idea that these kinds of decisions should be purely judged by an unaccountable elite.

that have decisions that are remote and disconnected from ordinary people. So I would argue it's the exact opposite. It may not be the... In fact, of juries that are to blame for it. But he is making the point that we don't seem to be doing too well on crime in this country and how to deal with it in terms of the amount of crime, the number of people we've sent to prison, the efficiencies of our judicial system and so on.

I think the point that I think he was making overall was that we need a complete overhaul. Nothing is working correctly. And I would agree with it. But also this point about juries, the more I think about it, the less I'm convinced just because we've had it. so long as a tradition means it's the correct moral principle. And the one thing we haven't talked about is actually the victims who wait.

or victims' families who can wait endlessly for some kind of decision to be made. And I wonder, you know, isn't there a moral harm being done there as well that we haven't talked about? And sometimes justice just needs to be done. A decision has to be made so that...

people can move on with their lives and anything that can expedite that i think should be welcomed can i just pick up on that point because the government's been selling it that way victims have been made to wait that assumes that they are victims

They're actually alleged victims in the same way that the accused is the alleged accused and a defender. And I think when we talk in these terms of expediting justice, there is a danger that we treat the person on the stand as someone who's got to be put in prison. That's the end result.

we want to get to. No, we want to work out whether or not they're actually guilty. Tim, you would accept the principle, wouldn't you, that justice delayed is justice denied. People waiting years and years to have... their chance, either as victim or as alleged in terms of violent crime. And that is a terrible thing, isn't it?

Of course it is. And not everyone is alleged. If somebody has murdered your friend or child or whatever and it's just a matter of finding out is this murder or manslaughter, there is somebody there that has to be tried. And if you...

If that person isn't tried for another five years or whatever, you know, what harm does that do to the family? The thread that ran through the whole programme, but especially the first half of the programme, was this idea of diversity, that juries... reflected the full diversity of society. How important is that, do you think? And does it go some way to answering that by saying, well...

magistrates are more diverse than judges. Yeah, and I think that's a really interesting one because I'm obviously quite reluctant to just assume our institutions are intrinsically biased against different groups. But I think that going back to...

that core question that we touched upon throughout the programme, trust, I do think it is important if individuals, if citizens in society don't believe that our institutions can be trusted. And there is something about the fact of being tried by a jury of your...

peers, that reflects your background, your biases and all of the different diversity that we have in society that can instill that trust in the decision that is being made. And I think that that is important. But why do you put trust in? ordinary people in that way. You wouldn't over other things. Well, I think that actually that was the commonality between Simon Jenkins and Anna Coote, even though one was arguing against juries and the other was arguing in favour of it.

Both of them seem to be based off the assumption that people are effectively uninformed. And so with Anna, she was saying that, well, we need to kind of be... told by experts and exposed to these different ideas in a concentrated environment. And I do generally think that that's the basis of democracy. But being uninformed was the whole point, wasn't it? That was Matthew.

thrown back at him, that actually it is the fact that they approach it from a position of, if you like, ignorance, but freshness, you know. But I don't think we should be afraid. I don't, you know. I don't think we should be afraid to recognise that there are big gaps in the public's awareness. Now, I believe absolutely in representative democracy as the backstop.

But we know the public systematically exaggerates the level of immigration, the level of crime. The public often say they want contradictory things. They want to pay lower taxes and have more... public investment and actually you can't expect those issues to be resolved by a single cross in a single box so we need a a kind of hybrid democracy yes representative democracy vital backstop representation but also mechanisms like

citizens, juries. And can I just also recognise the wonderful kind of irony to this programme, which is in the first half, you know, the defence of juries goes back to the Magna Carta, but the same people are criticising citizen assemblies as if it's a novel idea. It is, of course, an idea that goes... goes back to the very origins of Athenian democracy. Tim, citizens' juries, how strong a case did Anna Coote make for them?

I didn't, well, okay, I didn't think a very, if I had an assembly, I think they would say it wasn't a very strong case. Look, some people will be listening to this programme and won't understand the contradiction of myself and Anaya were for trial by jury, but then we were again citizens' juries.

Now, to explain that from my point of view, I like trial by jury because, one, it is tradition and things which are old, I think, are tested by time and therefore I value them. And two, it exists to protect my constitutional rights. The difference with the citizens' assemblies are, one, they are innovatory, so I'm always sceptical of that, and two, they are about rewriting a constitution.

When we already have plenty of constitutional tools to do that, i.e. a parliament, and I suspect, which is what I was trying to pin her down on, is I think these are being used by left-wing people as a new mechanism to get things done. They can't get through the ballot box. say that. What is wrong about progressive ideas? Because every single one that she came up with, the moment that she posits the Citizens' Assembly to bring back hanging...

I will consider that point of view, but I'm sorry. So you're pro-hanging? No, I didn't say I was. I'm just saying it's a right-wing idea that I bet no Citizens' Assembly will be called to consider. In those issues about Citizens' Assembly, can they be sort of accurately representative?

Are they accountable? Are they manipulated by or possibly manipulated by the people who are setting them up and providing them with the experts and all that kind of thing? Where do you fall on that now, having heard?

what people said the last two witnesses talked about. I thought Tom Simpson made a crucial point. One of the dangers of citizens' assemblies as well is that it almost creates a new political class that politicians can divert accountability for. Or the citizen assembly says this, and therefore I really think... that we should do it. And actually these assemblies, so to speak, aren't necessarily reflective of public opinion because they are not.

decisions that are final in the way that democracy is. Politicians do that all the time. Politicians always say you should do this because a random poll by Ipsos Mori says that we should do it. Politicians are constantly claiming they have the public on their side.

at least with a citizens' assembly, there's a slightly highly hurdle in the terms of the fact this is a group of people who've actually spent some time thinking about something. And also, they're not unaccountable. I mean, they are accountable to evidence, to process, to public transparency, just not party politics.

sued or sent to prison if what they suggest we vote for and it goes horribly wrong so how are they because tim and this is you know we keep coming this because they don't make the final decision and i do think. But what if their advice is wrong? It is fascinating. It is fascinating to me that critics of citizens' juries always and falsely and knowingly pretend that they make final decisions when they don't. At what point during this programme have I done that? I explicitly...

said when discussing abortion that they suggested they did not enforce. Tinker with democracy at your peril, said Professor Simpson. Five seconds, Mona. Was he right? No, because he didn't. I mean, he has a view against citizen assemblies. That is not the whole question of democracy. Okay. That's it. For this week, from our panel, Matthew Taylor, Mona Siddiqui, Tim Stanley and Inaya Falara Iman, you are now discharged. And from me, until the same time next week, goodbye. I just got that.

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