R v Abdroikov
Police officers and prosecutors can serve on juries, but not where their connection with the case gives rise to an appearance of bias.
Facts
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 removed the exemptions that had prevented police officers, lawyers and others connected with the justice system from serving on juries. In three appeals heard together, the juries had included, respectively, a police officer, a police officer who had worked at the same police station as a key police witness, and a solicitor employed by the Crown Prosecution Service, the prosecuting authority. The defendants argued that their trials were unfair.
Legal principle
The House of Lords held, by a majority of three to two, that the convictions in two of the cases must be quashed. In the case involving the police officer from the same station as the police witness, and in the case involving the CPS solicitor, a fair minded and informed observer would conclude that there was a real possibility of bias. Lord Bingham said that it was one thing for a police officer to serve on a jury in a case where there was no dispute about police evidence, but quite another where the officer had worked with a police witness whose evidence was disputed, and that justice must be seen to be done. In the first case, where there was no particular link, the conviction was upheld.
Related cases on juries
- Attorney General v Dallas [2012] EWHC 156 (Admin), [2012] 1 WLR 991
- Attorney General v Fraill [2011] EWCA Crim 1570, [2012] 1 Cr App R 1
- Bushell's Case (1670) Vaughan 135
- Gregory v United Kingdom (1998) 25 EHRR 577
- Hanif and Khan v United Kingdom (2012) 55 EHRR 16
- R v Ford [1989] QB 868
- R v Karakaya [2005] EWCA Crim 346, [2005] 2 Cr App R 5
- R v McKenna [1960] 1 QB 411
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