PRs proposed for jury duty

(CNS): The government is considering expanding the jury pool to include people who cannot vote. A new bill proposes to add permanent residents and Caymanian status holders (with or without naturalisation) as well as reducing the list of exempted professions and people. Members of the public are being asked to submit comments to the Attorney General’s Office for the Judicature Amendment Bill 2011, which suggests widening the list of persons eligible to serve as jurors in the Cayman Islands courts beyond the registered voters list. At this year’s official opening of the Grand Court the chief justice had drawn attention to the difficulties of finding people to serve on juries because of fear of intimidation or worse.

Rather than attempting to eliminate jury trials, as law enforcement officials had suggested last year, Chief Justice Anthony Smellie suggested that expanding the pool would be a more appropriate and just solution.

He said the legal profession was advising that the roll of jurors be widened from the voters list at present to include all adult persons lawfully resident in the Islands. “This would not only greatly increase the number of potential jurors, it would also spread all the burdens and responsibilities of jury duty across that wider base,” the country’s top judge had stated. “And it follows, there would be even less to be gained for those with criminal intentions in seeking to intimidate jurors, if they were assured that the society at large refuses to be intimidated.”

There are only 15,267 people on electoral list, which is just over a quarter of the current population of almost 55,000 people, as revealed by the preliminary census results earlier this month. From those who are eligible as voters, people over sixty are excluded as well as doctors and lawyers and even poor people, reducing the available pool by thousands.

Currently the governor, politicians, magistrates and justices of the peace, recognised pastors and ministers of religion, people working at the courts, medical practitioners, police officers and registrars are exempted, as well as those who can’t attend by reasons of poverty. People previously convicted before any court of an offence for which they were sentenced to prison and who have not received a pardon also cannot serve.

Officials are now considering removing some of the exemptions as well as including all permanent residents and increasing the current age limit from 60 to 70 years old. Lawyers too are being considered for inclusion, exempting only those attorneys who are actively engaged in litigation. The proposed bill further suggests remove the exemption for medical practitioners, registrars of land, births, marriages and death and those exempted by reason of poverty.

While the suggestion to widen the pool has been welcomed in some quarters of the community as a sensible solution, in particular increasing the age limit and removing some of the professional exemptions, the suggestion of adding permanent residents to the pool has, however, raised the question of their lack of democratic rights. The responsibility of serving on a jury works, in most democratic jurisdictions, hand in hand with the right to vote.

Anyone wishing to add their thoughts to the bill still being drafted should contact Tesia Scott in the Attorney General's Chambers, 4th Floor, Government Administration Building or by email tesia.scott@gov.ky by Friday, 6 May.

See draft amendment bill below.