Jury trial a pillar of democracy

Laws are often overly exacerbated with language that the average person cannot comprehend without formal training, yet non-knowledge of a law is not a legal remedy. So who are these laws for? Some of these challenges faced by jurors can be eliminated if laws where published so that the average man could understand and if understanding law would be taught in secondary schools as a mandatory subject from Form One, just like social studies and science.

Trial by jury is the only way the average citizen gets to voice his opinion on laws that govern him with the same status and pomp as our learned judicial officers. As the famous Judge Lord Denning stated, “Twelve heads (jury) are better than one (judge).” I have seen one particular judgment where a man was given 40 years in prison for killing another man who sexually and physically assaulted his underage daughter and got a two-and-half-year prison term from a judge.

That is just one case where, in my opinion, justice was not served.

Today these judicial custodians refuse to make the necessary changes to allow hangings which is the law. To whom can the average man turn to protect him if the judicial and legislature system fails to deter or protect society as a whole and offer some retributive justice where the punishment fits the crime? If given the opportunity, I would also place sentencing in the hands of my peers because we live in a society where raping a woman carries lesser consequences than other lower impacting crime.

Trial by jury is a pillar of democracy which should not be removed in any form or fashion because it’s the last form of protection from tyranny.

Gary Mohammed Claxton Bay