Taxquet v Belgium, R v Ponting, Trials by Jury and a Homage to Neil Maccormick
| Author | Scott Crosby |
| Published date | 01 June 2009 |
| Date | 01 June 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/203228440901a00101 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
New Journal of Eur opean Crimina l Law – Special Edit ion 3
EDITORIAL
TAXQUET v BELGIUM, R v PONTING,
TRIALS BY JURY AND A HOMAGE
TO NEIL MCORMICK
S C*
In its judgment of 13 January 2009 in the case of Taxquet v Belgium the ECtH R ruled
that Belgium had infringed Article 6 ECHR not because in the Taxquet tr ial the jury
had ret urned a guilty verdict, but because it had ret urned a guilty verdict without
stating its reasons. If this judgment is upheld in these terms by the Grand Chamber,
then tria l by jury will be at risk not only in Belgium but wherever the ECHR applies,
because to require juries to st ate the reasons for their verdicts is simply impractica l.
e jury system is of course imperfect and it is very dicult to appeal a conviction
aer a trial by jury, precisely because the reasons for the nding of guilt are not stated
by the court. I u sed to think that jur ies made life easier for the trial judge and harder
for the accused and that a bench of professional judges was much more likely to deliver
justice than a jur y of lay persons.
Consider, however, the following:
A civil servant discovers in the course of his employment information which the
government wishes to keep secret, but which he feel s has to be disclosed to the public
at large because an interest larger than that of the government is at stake. He is
inhibited from doing so by a law making it a serious cr iminal oence to disclose state
secrets to u nauthorised per sons. He dees the law and is prosecuted. He has one
defence allowed by the law, namely that disclosure wa s justied in the interests of the
state.
e case comes down to this: the government says disclosure is not in the interests
of the state. e accused says it is. A nicely balanced case, one might thi nk, one where
the prosecution, even if backed by t he government, has no better chance than the
accused.
Not so: the trial judge ru les that the term ‘interests of state’ has the meani ng the
government of t he day attributes to it, thus in eect ma king the st atutory defence a
dead letter.
* Senior Part ner, Crosby Houben & Aps, Brussels.
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