Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999: Special Measures Directions—Compliance with Article 6
| Author | Laura Hoyano |
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.2005.69.6.488 |
| Published date | 01 December 2005 |
| Date | 01 December 2005 |
| Subject Matter | House of Lords |
The principal preoccupation of the House of Lords was to distinguish
between the means used to raise the potential impropriety; the defend-
ant’s conviction was upheld not due to the timing or intrinsic nature of
the disclosure but due to his unwise selection of the mother of the
accused as the recipient of his revelations. This reiterates the general
principal underlying Mirza (that the court should be able to investigate
allegations of improper behaviour during deliberations) whilst adhering
to the ethos underpinning s. 8 (to prevent information about jury
deliberations falling into inappropriate hands).
The decision in Mirza that jurors were permitted to raise their con-
cerns about the conduct of other jurors during the course of delibera-
tions led to the issue of Practice Direction (Crown Court: Guidance to Jurors)
[2004] 1 WLR 665. This stated that trial judges should alert jurors to
their duty to bring the conduct of other jurors that causes concern to the
judge’s attention promptly at the time of the trial, and not after the
verdict has been delivered and the case concluded. If these guidelines
had been in place at the time that the trial in the instant case com-
menced, it is possible that the defendant may have acted differently and
used more appropriate channels to communicate his concerns to the
court. It is unlikely that the decision in the present case will lead to any
amendment of these guidelines to accommodate post-verdict disclosure
as the proliferation of allegations of impropriety after the verdict cannot
be conducive to the interests of certainty that are so fundamental to the
criminal justice process. It is more likely that the use of the guidelines to
emphasise to the jurors that the correct time to raise concerns about the
propriety of the conduct of their fellow jurors is during the trial should
limit the frequency with which post-verdict allegations of improper
behaviour arise.
Emily Finch
Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999: Special
Measures Directions—Compliance with Article 6
R v Camberwell Green Youth Court, ex p. D; R vCamberwell Green Youth
Court, ex p. DPP (G, FC) [2005] UKHL 4, [2005] 1 WLR 393
A cluster of cases from the youth courts involving defendants all aged 16
or under and charged with robbery or assault gave rise to a question
certified by the Divisional Court: does s. 21(5) of the Youth Justice and
Criminal Evidence Act 1999 (YJCEA) comply with Article 6 of the
European Convention on Human Rights insofar as it prevents ‘indi-
vidualised consideration of the necessity for a special measures direction
at the stage at which the direction is made’? The question was targeted
at the ‘primary rule’ created by s. 21(3) and (5), requiring that in trials
involving charges of sex, violence, neglect or kidnapping, all witnesses
The Journal of Criminal Law
488
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