Hansard

The debate has provided Parliament with a useful opportunity to look at the merits and shortcomings of having a three-verdict system in which two of the verdicts—by providing an acquittal—have the same outcome.

I reiterate that I fully respect and understand the strong and principled position taken by Michael McMahon in pursuing the removal of one of our verdicts for acquittal from the justice system. I also fully understand and acknowledge that a range of members of the Justice Committee were persuaded of the need to move from a three-verdict system to a two-verdict system. However, it is important that we are careful when we start to make alterations to the verdicts in the criminal justice system and to the interlinked aspects that play a key part in the process.

Elaine Murray highlighted a key challenge around understanding how the existing arrangements operate and what influences the decisions that our juries make. However, the very evidence from a justice of the peace that she cited and to which Graeme Pearson just referred shows that there are different understandings of what exactly a not proven verdict means and when it should be applied.

It is worth keeping in mind the areas to which the research on juries will give consideration. For example, it will look at what jurors understand to be the difference between a not guilty and a not proven verdict; why they choose one over the other; why and to what extent jurors alter their position on not proven and not guilty as a result of the jury’s deliberations; the extent to which members of a jury of 15 compared with those of a jury of 12 participate in the deliberations; the differences in the outcomes from a 12-person jury, with only two possible verdicts, and from a 15-person jury, with three verdicts, and the reasons for the different verdicts that they come to; and whether there are benefits in requiring the jury to attempt to reach a unanimous verdict. Research in all those areas will provide us with a significant level of insight into how juries arrive at their decisions—the process of deliberation that they undertake in order to arrive at an outcome. All that will assist us in understanding the jury process much more effectively.

As the Lord Bonomy review group recognised, the three component parts of our jury system—the jury majority, the jury size and the verdicts that are available—interlink. It is extremely important that we consider the issues that Lord Bonomy’s review group has highlighted and that we consult stakeholders on whether we should add further areas to the research. Once we have considered those matters, we will then, on an informed basis, be able to consider in greater detail what approach we should take in reforming this area.

In his speech, Christian Allard raised the issue of whether we should use mock or real jurors for the research. There are pros and cons to using one approach over the other, as members will appreciate. The first thing to say is that we have never had any research into jury behaviour in Scotland before and such research is rare internationally. One of the practical considerations is that we would have to amend the Contempt of Court Act 1981 to facilitate the use of real jurors, which we would not have to do if we made use of mock jurors in the research.