Tag Archives: jury service

Lib Dems need to do something about jury duty

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The importance to our judicial system of having a jury of ‘ordinary’ people who are the sole judge of guilt in a case is a thing of which we should be immensely proud but, having done my jury duty I feel it is in need of huge reform.

In October a dreaded letter arrived out of the blue. Some malevolent machine had drawn my name out of the unlucky lottery, and I was summoned to appear for Jury Duty.
It is quite an inverse lottery. According to the letter about 200,000 are chosen at random every year from the electoral register for two weeks jury duty.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 14 Comments

Individual electoral registration: consultation response

Here’s the response I’ve sent to the Electoral Registration Transformation Programme ([email protected]) in response to the consultation on the draft legislation for individual electoral registration, which closes on 14 October. For the background on the benefits of individual electoral registration, see What’s the point of switching to individual electoral registration?

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the draft legislation which has been published to implement individual electoral registration in Great Britain. The publication of a full draft for public consultation is a very welcome improvement on the way …

Posted in Election law | Also tagged , and | 16 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • Ben Wood
    It is such sad news. I was lucky to get to know Micheal over the last few years (working on a book project for the John Stuart Mill Institute). He reaffirmed fo...
  • Ed Sanderson
    Very sad news. I remember many a lively evening of erudite discussion in Leeds - Michael was a true intellect - and a genuinely warm soul. My condolences to his...
  • Jack
    This is bang on. What is the point of a liberal party that won't stand up for rights, especially when both government and opposition want to make hay out of div...
  • Matt (Bristol)
    I totally understand this is a key issue for many Lib Dems (and I'm not speaking for Lib Dems myself, I'm an ex-member). But I don't understand how this 'vangua...
  • John Grout
    Fully agree with all of this. I've seen a few MPs' Pride Month posts reference Section 28 abolition and Same-Sex Marriage - we need to start talking about this...