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Jury Directions paper released

The Victorian Law Reform Commission has released a Consultation Paper on Jury Directions containing proposals to simplify directions and warnings given by judges to juries in criminal trials.

Chairperson of the commission, Professor Neil Rees, said that in developing proposals for discussion the commission was guided by established principles of the criminal justice system including the right to a fair trial and the right to appeal against conviction.

“The commission has been asked to identify how directions to juries could be improved and simplified while maintaining the overall aims of the criminal justice system,” Professor Rees said.

The Consultation Paper identifies factors that contribute to complex and lengthy jury directions, particularly in sexual offence trials and in relation to consciousness of guilt warnings.

The commission also considers the requirement for judges to summarise evidence for the jury at the end of a trial and refer to defences that may not have been raised by counsel.

“The increase in the number and complexity of mandatory judicial warnings has added to the length of criminal trials,“ Professor Rees said.

“The current law governing jury directions is unduly complex and it often fails to provide trial judges with sufficient guidance about the instructions that must be given to juries about the law and the way in which they should deal with the evidence,” he said.

Professor Rees said similar issues in relation to jury directions were also the subject of inquiries by the New South Wales and Queensland Law Reform Commissions.

Retired Supreme Court Judge, the Honourable Geoffrey Eames, QC, has been appointed as a consultant to the project.
Reform proposals in the Consultation Paper include:

• Introducing legislation to set out all the circumstances in which the trial judge is, or is not, required to direct the jury, the content of some directions, as well as setting out the trial judge’s obligation to direct the jury about the real issues in a case.
• Creation of a document to be given to juries at the commencement of each trial setting out the elements of each offence that would indicate the matters that are in dispute.
• Restricting counsel from raising points of law on appeal which were not raised, and could have been raised, during the trial.
• Clarifying when a judge is required to direct the jury about defences or alternative versions of the facts not put to the jury by counsel.

Submissions in response to the Consultation Paper are open until 30 November 2008. The final report to the Attorney-General is due in March 2009.

For more information or an interview with Professor Rees or Geoffrey Eames, QC, please contact: Sally Finlay, Communications Manager, Tel: 03 8619 8635, Mob: 0417 565 326
sally.finlay@lawreform.vic.gov.au.