PARLIAMENT is next month expected to start debating the Jury (Amendment) Bill 2015, Justice Minister Mark Golding told the Jamaica Observer this week.

The bill forms part of a drive to reform the justice system and include a slew of proposals expected to enhance the delivery of justice, especially in the criminal branch of the system.

One of the proposed amendments is widening the pool from which jurors can be selected, and provide protection for workers from adverse employer action resulting from giving jury service.

The pool will be expanded with the proposed removal of the exemption of public servants from the list, Golding told the Senate last year October.

Schedule A of the current Jury Act exempts civil servants, or individuals holding appointments within the public sector and receiving salaries in the public service, from serving as jurors.

The schedule also currently exempts members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives and the Privy Council and their spouses; members of the judiciary; mayors and deputy mayors; councillors; attorneys-at-law; ministers of religion; medical doctors; schoolteachers; registered dental practitioners and pharmacists; nurses and midwives; and students.

The Bill, meanwhile, proposes a reduction in the number of jurors dealing with non-capital murder cases from 12 to seven. It will also seek to reduce the number of peremptory challenges (that is the rejection of juror without the need to show cause) available to the prosecution and the accused. There will continue to be no limit on challenges for cause.

Golding said previously that accused people and the prosecution will be allowed to mutually agree for a trial by judge alone of any case that would otherwise be tried by jury.