WITH trials by jury suspended since 2020 in Jamaica due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, Chief Justice Bryan Sykes believes the death knell has sounded for them.

Speaking during the opening of the Hilary Term of the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston on Friday, the chief justice, who in the 2020 had urged individuals to opt for judge-alone trials as it was uncertain when jury trials would resume, said, “As far as jury trials are concerned I think the time has come now for us to revisit whether we should retain jury trials.”

According to the chief justice, with trials being “pushed further and further back” because of the suspension of jury trials, because of the vagaries of the pandemic, “it is just a matter of time before someone is going to make the case that their constitutional rights to a fair trial within a reasonable time are being violated”.

In this context, the chief justice, while batting for jury trials to be struck out altogether, said, “The executive and the legislature really need to revisit this question of jury trials, and if they are going to retain them then you have to have all the financial and material resources necessary to make it work in the context of a pandemic because it is going to be costly”.

“I remember when I spoke at the Assize Service in 2020 and I indicated ‘who knows when jury trials will resume?’ We are now roughly two months away from two years since the pandemic arrived on our shores and we have not been able to resume jury trials.

“The variants and the fluctuations in the positivity rate in the context of low vaccination, all of these factors combine to make jury trials very difficult to contemplate and to manage. It seems to me that the time has come for us to do away with jury trials,” the chief justice stated.

Added Justice Sykes: “The truth is there is nothing to suggest that jury trials are an inherent better quality of justice than bench trials”.

Jamaica, he said, “does not seem to have a coherent policy regarding what matters are tried by the jury and what matters are not”, noting that historical records have shown over time that matters such as burglaries, robberies and breaks-ins, which were tried by juries, are no longer being tried that way.

“Usually now it is in the context of the use of a firearm. When we create new offences within recent times [they are tried using] bench trials. So we have the Lotto scamming, bench trials, human trafficking that began as judge and jury trial; it is now a bench trial. So what is the policy that informs that? There was a time when cocaine cases were tried by judge and jury; it doesn’t happen anymore. Money laundering again, it’s possible, but it doesn’t happen. So what you have is a situation in which… it’s a declining list of cases that are tried by judge and jury,” the chief justice argued.

Justice Sykes further noted that in the Gun Court, which has been in existence for a little over 40 years, the only firearm offence that is tried by a jury there is murder.

“So it begs the question, then, what is the policy and the thinking behind retaining jury trials in an ever-increasing number of criminal offences and those offences tend to be murder, sexual offences, wounding and death in the context of vehicular collisions and that’s about it,” he said.

According to the chief justice, “there is no magic in jury trials”.

“The question ultimately is whether there was a fair trial, and the fairness is assessed now in light of the procedures leading up to the actual trial and what happens during the trial process; that is how fairness is determined, not necessarily by the mode of trial,” he added.

Meanwhile, a meeting on Thursday involving judges and stakeholders in the COVID-19 Advisory Committee examined the issue of the management of the jury trials given the reported increase in the positivity rate and the acknowledged high transmissibility of the Omicron variant, which has been confirmed to be present in Jamaica. The resolution was that jury trials be delayed a bit for another three weeks while stakeholders contemplated practical ways for them to resume.

In the meantime, president of the Jamaican Bar Association Alexander Williams, speaking during the opening of the Hilary Term on Friday, said the association welcomed the return of jury trials. Williams, speaking with the Jamaica Observer after, said, “We have to be monitoring what has been happening in the space and what has been happening. So far, there had been a previous decision to resume jury trials as soon as possible. The ‘soon as possible’ isn’t here yet. So we are pushed off for a further few weeks, but the point I am making is we are welcoming the return of jury trials.”