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

  • peter wrigley
    Your five points are perfectly sound , but they omit the main purpose of our party, which is surely to protect and improve Liberal Democracy both this country ...
  • David Raw
    Paul. I'm afraid you can't deny that the party of 'Middle England' is also the Waitrose party....
  • Graham Jeffs
    Phil, you are right - a twenty-five-year span. Yet having a vision with a philosophy supported by sensible policies is but part of the issue. It seems likely ...
  • Jamie Sharpley
    Westminster by-elections now get a considerable amount of coverage and scrutiny. The Party is not doing itself any favours by only campaigning in seats where th...
  • Caron LindsayCaron Lindsay
    I thought the sardines were representing you being squashed into the buses! This time next year, I'll have my bus pass, but I won't be able to use it outside...