Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

gail.alexan­der@guardian.co.tt

Peo­ple would pre­fer to be judged by a ju­ry of their peers since a ju­ry brings to a tri­al what a judge alone can’t bring, says UNC Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al.

Speak­ing in yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate de­bate on the bill to ex­pand the am­bit of the “Tri­al by Judge Alone” law and re­duce ju­ry num­bers, Lutch­me­di­al said re­duc­tion in the num­bers re­quires se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tions.

“I don’t think it is some­thing to be treat­ed so light­ly as to say it will make tri­als eas­i­er to have,” she said.

Lutch­me­di­al said to be judged by a ju­ry of their peers is very im­por­tant to peo­ple.

“What a ju­ry brings to a tri­al is some­thing that I’d say, I don’t be­lieve a judge can bring alone; that is: the prac­ti­cal every­day ex­pe­ri­ence of the av­er­age man and woman in T&T.

“How the av­er­age man or woman would re­act to a cer­tain sit­u­a­tion, how the av­er­age man or woman would be ex­pect­ed to re­spond to ques­tions posed to them by the po­lice in cas­es where you’re deal­ing with con­fes­sions...”

She ques­tioned that abil­i­ty where it con­cerns some­one who lives a very clois­tered life “that lim­its their in­ter­ac­tion with the man on the (Pri­or­i­ty) Bu Route.”

“If you don’t in­ter­act with the man on the Bus Route, or the man stand­ing up at City Gate, or the man walk­ing around High Street, San Fer­nan­do - can you re­al­ly judge the av­er­age per­son and their re­ac­tion? When you’re deal­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly with crimes of pas­sion, and con­fes­sions that are be­ing chal­lenged?”

She said there are le­gal is­sues that a judge will treat with, “But the weight you want to put on that ev­i­dence ...when an av­er­age per­son is per­mit­ted to ex­am­ine the ev­i­dence that is brought against an ac­cused, their hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence is what they bring to bear on that tri­al. And that is some­thing that no num­ber of lay as­ses­sors or any­body else could re­place in this sit­u­a­tion.”

The bill al­so pro­pos­es lay as­ses­sors to as­sist judges in tri­als by judge alone.

Lutch­me­di­al said an ac­cused would want, “some­one who is just like you - an av­er­age per­son who un­der­stands their sto­ry, back­ground and thought process - to be the one who will de­ter­mine if they should be con­vict­ed of of­fences.”

“So, we have to bal­ance that re­quire­ment for ex­pe­di­tious, more cost-ef­fec­tive tri­als to rid the sys­tem of all the chal­lenges,” she said, ques­tion­ing why a wider par­tic­i­pa­tion of so­ci­ety should be scar­i­fied to achieve that.

Lutch­me­di­al, who not­ed the Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s state­ments on the bill, sup­port­ed cer­tain points.