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

  • John Studholme
    I Agee with every word of the above. I used Tony’s manuals to achieve control of South Lakeland District Council and to get Tom Farron elected an MP. His me...
  • Jeff
    David 9th Oct '26 - 10:13am: Some very useful food for thought for the party. Here's the next course... Well good folks of Br...
  • Nick Baird
    The problem in 2019 was "Vote Lib Dem, Get Jeremy Corbyn", as was being illegally fly-posted around Cheltenham on polling day.......
  • David Wright
    The problem in 2019 wasn't that we were going to "rejoin the EU if we won", but that we were going to do so without another referendum first, something we'd bee...
  • Sarah
    I am glad to hear that Charlie and others are pushing Ed for change. He’s ignored the stagnant polls and the frustration among MPs for far too long. He’s be...